


FIC: Sons of July

by deslea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fic, Friendship, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Malfoy Friendship, Multi, Pureblood Society
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:37:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Narcissa and Lucius found friendship in their arranged marriage, and love outside it with Severus and Tonks - spies with divided loyalties, both. Their secret loves and loyalties would, quite by accident, add the final layer to the force that might bring down the Dark Lord once and for all. Canon compliant-ish to Astronomy Tower (liberties taken, especially with dates). Told in three acts:</p><p><b>Act 1: The Hidden Third</b>. Narcissa's pregnancy leads to soul searching - about the dilution of a Pureblood family, the extinction of the Houses of Malfoy and Black, and the triple defiance of the three in concealing their child's nature from their own Dark master.</p><p><b>Act 2: Maîtresse-en-titre</b>. After years of indulging Narcissa and Severus, oblivious to the mastery of romantic love, Lucius learns first-hand about the craziness and folly of loving the wrong person. This one is Nymphadora Tonks, the spy sent to betray him. </p><p><b>Act 3: The Sons Of July</b>. Severus hears a new prophecy, and learns of a fourth Son of July. In the final battle, Nymphadora, Lucius, Severus and Narcissa are reunited - but none have the full picture, and sacrifices will be needed along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act One: The Hidden Third

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [FIC: Kill To Be Kind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/376768) by [deslea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **The Hidden Third**. Narcissa's pregnancy leads to soul searching - about the dilution of a Pureblood family, the extinction of the Houses of Malfoy and Black, and the triple defiance of the three in concealing their child's nature from their own Dark master.

[](http://fiction.deslea.com/sonsjulycover600x789_lq.jpg)  
Now with gorgeous cover art by [ellygator](http://ellygator.deviantart.com).

   
  
 **ACT ONE  
** The Hidden Third  
  
 _A man of light and features dark_  
 _And Lady Black, his counterpart_  
 _Form a bloc with her spouse_  
 _Alliance within the Dark Lord's house_  
 _To hide a Son of July_  
\-- Sybill Trelawney, 30 July 1997

 

[MARCH 1980: LUCIUS]

"Our parents want us to marry."

Lucius said this casually over dinner one night. It was not a lover-like declaration; they were not lovers.

Narcissa swallowed hard, and that was his first clue that all was not right with her. They had been friends for a very long time, it was true, but Narcissa was the perfect young society lady – not a lady, but a Lady – and it was not in her to betray her emotions. They had shared much over the years, but their hurts emerged as cynical commentary and disparaging remarks, not as softness and tears.

Narcissa was now demonstrating both.

Lucius put down his fork and looked at her intently. "Narcissa?"

She averted her gaze hurriedly, reaching for her wine and gulping it down.

He sat back in his high-backed chair, regarding her with a high degree of curiosity. "I had thought, Narcissa, that you would not be displeased by this turn of events. We're most agreeable companions. We could make a pleasant household. Merlin knows, Cygnus and Druella could easily have chosen someone less so for you. I assume you had no designs on Evan Rosier, for instance."

"Oh, shut up, you stupid man," she said impatiently. "You're more likely to have designs on Evan than I am."

"Please, darling, I would never stoop so low. Slum it with Sirius Black before he _completely_ lost his mind, yes, but Evan has not even the appeal of good looks. And must I be tarred with that brush forever? When all is said and done, I prefer the company of women."

She cocked an eyebrow at that. "Really, dear? I had no idea."

"Because I've never had designs on you? You're most lovely, dear, but you're like a sister to me."

Narcissa was suddenly solemn. "And you, a brother to me. That's very much the problem."

"Surely you had no thought of finding someone you _love_ to marry, Narcissa. Dear friends is usually as fortuitous as one gets. We have, after all, a responsibility to our bloodline. Regrettable, but we have the sexual revolution and our wretched parents' _laissez-faire_ breeding habits to thank for that." This was a well-worn complaint among his contemporaries, and having aired it, he dropped it. Mentally, he ticked quickly through their social circle. Nott, Crabbe, Rosier. "I really can't see a candidate amongst us for a love match at all." It was true enough; there was no one anywhere near good enough for Narcissa.

Narcissa was very pale, and then, suddenly, he knew.

"No," he said suddenly, "that isn't it. I'm an idiot. There's someone you love already. Is that it?"

She nodded. Looked away.

"Well, come on, girl, out with it. What is it? He's older? Married? Doesn't love you? Come on, spit it out."

"He's younger, not married, and he does love me."

"Then marry him. Why on earth would you not? Unless – oh, darling, he's not a blood traitor, is he? Or a Mudblood?"

"Good God no. Nothing like that. I have _some_ standards. It's just – he's poor. And half-blood. A noble mother who married a Muggle. It all ended unhappily, of course. It almost always does. I _told_ Andromeda that, but she just _wouldn't_ listen. He's as much a Purist as any Pureblood, very acceptable in every other way, but you know my parents. They would consider his poverty a stain. Righteous punishment for his mother betraying our kind, that sort of thing. They'd never agree."

Quite right, Lucius thought, but didn't say so. There was nothing romantic about shared poverty, and if Andromeda had been looked down on rather than exiled totally, perhaps Narcissa would have learned that. A good woman like Narcissa deserved a man who could provide as well as love, but a woman in love would not appreciate the sentiment.

"No, I suppose they wouldn't. Am I allowed to ask who?" He added with his most endearing smile, "It will stay between me and thee."

She sighed. "I suppose. There's no one else on earth I'd tell. It's Severus, darling. Severus Snape."

He raised an eyebrow. She was right; Snape _was_ acceptable in almost every other way. Brilliant, magically gifted, serious, and conscientious. A man likely to make much of himself. Lucius thought he himself could forgive Snape's blood status and means – maybe not for Narcissa, but at least for the youngest daughter of a large family, one where the bloodline was not at stake. "I thought he was carrying a torch for that ghastly Lily Evans. Quite aside from being a good three years your junior." 

"Oh, he was. And I dare say he'll always have a soft spot for her. But I took it upon myself," she said mischievously, "to distract him. Just a bit of fun, really, get him out of his funk, that sort of thing. And he admired me in the most gratifying way. Men initiated by an older woman always do, I think."

"Indeed," Lucius smirked, an eyebrow raised. Narcissa had always played her exploits close to her chest; a lady had her reputation to protect. "I take it things have... _progressed_ from that?"

"Yes," she nodded, suddenly serious. "He's quite as taken as I am. He isn't a social climber, Lucius; he admires nobility, but not money in its own right. And he hasn't asked. He knows we couldn't – could never –" and suddenly those lovely eyes of hers were full again.

"That's quite the problem," he said thoughtfully.

"You're a dear friend," she said hastily. "If it weren't for this, there's no one I'd rather marry. We've sort of fallen in together down the years, you and me, and I think it would be rather good to make it a permanent arrangement. But –"

"But there's Severus, and you would be unhappy?" he said gently.

She nodded, and then – there was no pretence about it – she burst into tears.

He watched her for a while, letting her tend to herself. She hated to be fussed over. He slid his handkerchief across the table to her, and took her hand a moment when she picked it up, but otherwise left her be.

"I do apologise," she said presently in a strangled voice.

"Hush," he said, waving his hand, as though at an insignificant disturbance. "Narcissa, if Severus can't marry you, and if you would enjoy being married to me, I really see no reason that we should not. I would, of course, ask that you be discreet."

Her tears dried up all at once. "You mean-"

"You know what I mean," he said imperiously.

Her voice fell to a whisper. "I couldn't cheat on you, Lucius. Some horrid stuffy old man my parents married me off to, perhaps, but not _you_."

He felt oddly touched. 

"That's very sweet, dear, but it's hardly cheating if it's agreed to in advance. And I have no intention of giving up _my_ amusements." He picked up his napkin ring from the table and Transfigured it down. "Now darling, would you do the honour of being my wife?"

Narcissa broke out in watery laughter. "A Transfigured ring? Oh, darling, you shouldn't have."

"I'll have you know that's one of our very best napkin rings," he huffed. "Great Uncle Hercules personally extracted it from a rock in Camelot when he was re-tracing the steps of King Arthur. Or some such rot."

"Gilderoy Lockhart could learn a thing or two from Hercules," she agreed. "Can you imagine the awful puffed-up books they'd write together? Look, it's stamped _H &L. _Messrs Horace and Lott, Fine Linen and Accoutrements, if I'm not mistaken."

"Picky, picky. Will you marry me, or do I have to ask that _awful_ Parkinson woman?"

"Parkinson? Good God, darling, why didn't you say so. And here was me thinking your interest was completely altruistic."

Lucius choked. "Surely you jest."

"Yes, I know, I know. Very stupid of me. To save you from the jaws of hell, darling, I'll happily marry you." She slipped the ring onto her finger. "Happy?"

Lucius clucked in disapproval. "You mean you _don't_ want the most expensive ring in all of Diagon Alley? You're slipping, my dear."

Narcissa lifted her imperial jaw. She said archly:

"I want that _as well._ "

* * *

[JUNE 1980: SEVERUS]

"I was sorry to hear about your father."

A nerve in Lucius' cheek seemed to jump a little, but he said only, "Thank you, Severus. It was rather sudden." He was staring at the fire, but waved an idle hand towards the other chair.

Severus sat. "Were you close?" he asked. Merlin knew, had Tobias Snape had a sudden coronary, fatuous condolences would have been coldly received.

"Not particularly," Lucius said dryly. "I was pretty much raised by the elves. But then, most were, I suppose. Old bastard hung around long enough to drag me into _this,_ damn him," he added, waving his forearm, "but that and my signet ring is about all I've got to show for it. Pretty damn tragic when you think about it."

Severus nodded. "You regret taking the Mark?" he asked with interest. Had they been anywhere else, he wouldn't have done that, but he'd spent enough time in the Malfoy home now to know its wards. They were not only Lucius' wards, but the wards of generations before him.

"I wouldn't say _regret._ I believe in the ideas, but I see problems with a relatively small army targeting a large population. It didn't work out so well for Grindelwald, if you recall. And I'm not in favour of costly battles with no point. The Dark Lord is strategic, but as you've noticed, the same cannot be said of all his soldiers." 

Severus made a sound of agreement, curious to see where this went. Lucius was not the only one of the Dark Lord's followers to have ideas of his own, but most were simply power-hungry or vicious. Lucius, he had long thought, was different - he had chosen Voldemort much as you might choose an imperfect political party because it was the closest match available to his beliefs, the least unpalatable option of a sea of them. He was, by all appearances, a good soldier, but not a slavish one. It was not in someone like Lucius Malfoy to surrender his mind.

"He may get his way," Lucius went on. "He's strong, and at this point, he's the best chance we have. But if it was strictly up to me, I'd have chosen a more moderate path. Hedged my bets. At this point, we're probably better off targeting breeding practices of the Purebloods that remain, rather than trying to kill the entire great unwashed. Hell, _someone_ needs to clean the streets and grow the herbs. I'm sure as hell not doing it." 

Severus allowed himself a small smile. "Hedging your bets is the Lucius Malfoy we all know and love."

The corners of Lucius' mouth curled slightly. "Indeed."

They sat like that for a while, but presently, Severus said, "I don't mean to seem self-interested at a difficult time, but the question of an heir now becomes acute for you, doesn't it?"

"It always was," Lucius said complacently. "My father was unlikely to father any more children, no matter how many poor hapless young scraps of girls he dragged into his lair. He managed to kill three in childbed, and the babies too."

"And yet you've agreed to take a wife only in name." _Haven't you?_ he wondered, but did not ask.

Lucius shrugged easily. "There must _be_ an heir, of course. But Severus, there are things you don't know about the more private aspects of our society. It is not required that the heir be a direct descendant - only that the child be related, and of equal blood status and social rank. You must understand, as the stock of Pure blood has decreased, infertility and abnormalities have become an issue. I don't even know if I _can_ father children. Many can't. Adoption and wardship are common. The child often has a place of honour in both families."

"But surely that's not your preference."

"At this point I have no preference. As the last of my line, it would be best for the gene pool if my heirs were of my blood. But even then, biologically, it would be better for me to find a mistress for that. Narcissa and I are quite closely related. In any event, I'm in no hurry." He stretched out and said, "But it remains to be seen, Severus, how enduring your relationship with her will be. Perhaps you will be part of our strange little family for the duration, perhaps not. If you're still together, you'll be consulted."

That rankled, but really, what could he say? It dawned on Severus that in the triangle that was their strange little family, he would always be the lowest point.

He wondered whether that was a family he could live in at all.

* * *

He thought about it later, after love, as Narcissa drifted off to sleep in his arms.

It was a peculiar state of affairs, conducting their liaison under Lucius' protection. The risk - while not gone - was very much reduced, and that had changed the dynamic of their relationship considerably.

The Narcissa who had seduced him a year and a half ago was a restrained creature. Controlled. She'd drawn out his climaxes and her own in silent movements, not outside her body but within it. He'd assumed it was a legacy of a family where virginity was up for barter.

But now, under Lucius' roof, they had a bed, and wards and protections. And still she was that quiet, minimalist woman with economic movements. She was a woman whose very orgasms were elegant and graceful. Narcissa coming was a beautiful thing, an exquisite thing. A thing the poets could write scrolls about.

But Severus' first love had been a woman quite unlike that. A girl who laughed too loud and ran and skipped and tripped and tumbled. A girl who had fallen out of a broom closet with her fiancé at their engagement party, or so he'd heard, all smiles and good humour as they straightened their clothes and their friends toasted their good form. Lily was earthy where Narcissa was ethereal.

Lily, he thought, was an unruly spray of marigolds. A woman who might, in a different world, have knelt before him and held his gaze with intense, hungry eyes as she...

Severus swallowed. Pressed his lips into Narcissa's hair.

If Lily was a marigold, Narcissa was a white English rose. Narcissa's love was anaemic. Narcissa was not hungry. Narcissa bestowed favours.

It dawned on Severus that he had thought she would change once the danger of discovery had passed. He was a little embarrassed at what he now realised to be naiveté.

Narcissa shifted. "I love you, Severus," she mumbled as she tucked herself deeper into the crook of his arm.

"Same," he murmured. She was almost asleep again.

He _did_ love her, he thought. And even if he didn't, he was committed now. Narcissa's virginity was now in question through her betrothal to Lucius, and their affair meant she would have no claim on a settlement from him if he chose to break the engagement. 

Lucius would not smear their reputations unnecessarily, Severus believed, but nor would he part with money he was not required to by law. And he did not underestimate Lucius' seemingly genuine protectiveness of Narcissa. If he let Narcissa down, it was possible that Lucius would ruin him by painting him as the scoundrel who had taken advantage of her, then make a show of forgiving her and marrying her anyway. 

And if he was _perfectly_ honest about it, there weren't a lot of other options, were there? He had worked doubly hard than the rest, and the Dark Lord liked him for it. He might - _might_ \- allow him to marry a Pureblood widow who had already had her children. But a lovely young woman who had chosen him, who loved him? No. Severus' credit with the Dark Lord extended to many things, but tainting already-endangered bloodlines was not one of them.

He wondered whether it was as simple as that, whether he'd latched onto her simply because she was the only woman who'd have him. It was an ugly thought. He liked to believe he was not an ugly person. 

He'd shown his worth, after all. Committed himself to his kind. He'd fought alongside them, fought to protect them and their way of life. They had recognised his gifts and talents and worth, and accepted him, though he was half-blood, a blight on the things they held dear. Meanwhile, those who preached tolerance and freedom had excluded him for the far lesser sin of being awkward and serious. 

He had repaid their acceptance with commitment and zeal. Had not walked away when some of his compatriots showed themselves to be cowardly and vicious. Had accepted that even right ideas could be wrongly executed - people were always the weakest link in an ideology - and had stayed true while others fell away.

There was Narcissa, of course. Technically, an offence. But that had been contained. She had still betrothed suitably. Sooner or later, Lucius would probably ask her for a child (if he did not ask her to raise a bastard gotten elsewhere). And while both of those things stung, Severus would not stand in the way. He knew his place. He was not Pure; he had no claim on her at all.

He knew that she loved him; he would accept her favours for as long as she chose to give them.

But sometimes, he thought of marigolds and a long-ago girl who hungered for life, and he thought of white roses and he wished Narcissa felt hunger, too.

* * *

[JULY 1980: NARCISSA]

"A lady keeps control of her emotions," Narcissa murmured to her reflection.

It had been her mother's refrain, and her grandmother's, and probably every bloody Black woman since the rule of Boadicea. She agreed with it and hated it in equal measure. Agreed with it, because one's emotions should not be inflicted on others. Hated it, because sometimes she didn't know where her self-discipline ended and her interior began.

She had received an owl that morning. _You don't have to do this, Cissy,_ the note had said. _There is always another way. Marriage is meant to be for love._

Narcissa had dropped the note in the fire before anyone could see it. It was unsigned, but who else but Andromeda would dream up such nonsense? Marriage was for ensuring the future. For blending property and blood. Did Andromeda envision her weeping into her handkerchief? She was marrying a dear friend who allowed her private passions with grace. Narcissa reflected that she was very lucky.

The note had still unsettled her, of course. She was not completely immune to the creeping cultural messages about the place of marriage. She noted, though, that those messages originated primarily in the Muggle world, where there was no need for concern for bloodlines. If Muggles were facing extinction, Narcissa thought they would become very utilitarian, very fast. It had taken less than a decade after the sexual revolution for that correction to occur in her own world. It had taken the loss of only a handful of families - the Potters being the newest - for the tide to turn.

Narcissa inspected her reflection again. No signs of turmoil, she thought. Good. And in truth, no real feeling of it either. The marriage was an arrangement, and the best available of a number of far worse options. 

She would walk into the Circle to Lucius, her dear friend, and greet him with a smile.

* * *

Narcissa's smile broke halfway through the ceremony.

The Malfoys had been on this land for over a thousand years, and the magic embedded in the soil was continuous and connected and strong. Narcissa had never been to a Handfasting in such a place (in truth, few still existed) and had never seen a Blessing of Ancestors or a calling of the Four Spirits that actually _meant_ anything at all.

Here, though, they meant something. She felt it in the calling of the Spirit of the East, spirit of creation and regeneration and conception. Felt the magic rise around her. Felt some inner knowledge inside her open up - _this, this is what it's about_ \- and felt something in her break when they called on their ancestors, their heritage, to bless them. Lucius' heritage was a special thing, but Severus had heritage too, things that had nourished him and grown him into the man he was. It was not right that _his_ landscape was not here.

Her eyes stung as their hands were tied with ribbon for the rite.

"Narcissa, my dearest friend. I will guard you and the things you hold dear," Lucius said gently. "Will you do the same for me?"

Her eyes widened slightly at that. His eyes were grave, and she realised he had done this, had ensured that at least one of their vows would be truth.

She felt heady, swooning relief. Relief that he knew her, knew how this would hurt her before she did, and relief that he would hold her steady.

"I will," she whispered.

The rest of it washed over her. She could feel something about her, some certainty, draining out and away. Leaving her empty.

Leaving her _hungry._

She clutched at Lucius convulsively when he planted a chaste kiss on her lips.

"Lucius," she whispered against him, "I need to-"

"I know," he said, tilting up to plant a kiss on her forehead. "Trust me."

When it was over, he turned to face their guests.

He said in a high, clear voice, "Thank you all for joining myself and my lovely wife for the ceremony. Please excuse us so we can freshen up. There are cocktails and canapés in the ballroom, and we'll be with you very shortly." 

Their guests rose, some coming forward for a quick congratulations. Narcissa leaned into Lucius, feeling breathless and overwhelmed. He gripped her waist, supporting her.

"Going up for a quick deflowering, are we?" Bellatrix said with a smirk, and not at all quietly. "Lucius, just make sure you take your time with her. _If_ you can."

Lucius' mouth wrinkled in distaste. "Neither a gentleman nor a lady kisses and tells, Bellatrix. Not that you'd know."

Narcissa forced a girlish smile onto her face, her most sisterly tone into her voice. "Bella, you and Lucius really must learn to play nicely together. After all, he's family now." She leaned in and said, _sotto voce_ , "I'll tell you all about it later."

"Just be sure to make me well-endowed," Lucius muttered as Bellatrix left them. "Severus," he called in a normal voice. "Could you do me a favour, old chap?"

Severus made his way over. He looked white and ghastly.

"Seems there's been some sort of a disaster with the honeymoon arrangements. I don't trust those elves to fix it at _all_. Would you be good enough to Floo over to Diagon Alley for me? I'm sure it's just a matter of half an hour with someone with half a brain in their head to sort it out."

Severus gave a stilted bow. "Of course, Lucius, I'd be most happy to." His gaze slid over to Narcissa, meeting her eye, and trembling, she held out her hand. He kissed it. "Congratulations, Narcissa."

"Thank you, Severus," she whispered.

Lucius leaned in and shook his hand. "Narcissa's chamber," he said in a low voice. "Bellatrix might have done you a favour with her perfectly filthy insinuations. We can stretch it out to three quarters of an hour, no more. You Floo out then back in."

Something _flickered_ in Severus' face, but he only nodded, and turned and walked away.

With autocratic nods and smiles, she and Lucius made their way up the stairs. Passed through the wards. Dropped their hold on each other.

"Can I count on you," he said as they walked companionably side-by-side, "to pull yourself together by the time we go back out there?" His voice was grave, but not unkind.

She nodded. Turned to face him as they reached the point where their corridors parted ways. "I will," she said. Then, stroking his cheek, she said meaningfully, "I will guard you and the things you hold dear as you have guarded me and mine."

He leaned in and kissed her cheek, and they left it at that.

* * *

[JULY 1980: SEVERUS]

She was already there when he landed from the Floo on the floor of her bedchamber.

She was sitting on the chair by her dressing table, and she _launched_ herself across the room, landing on the floor beside him before he could get to his feet. She knelt before him in her dress, clasping his face between her palms, kissing him urgently.

Kissing him _hungrily._

"It should have been us," she said wretchedly against him. He could taste tears on her lips, and his grip on her shoulders tightened. He'd never seen her _weep_ before.

"I know," he rasped in a low, rumbling voice. Feeling something awakening in him, an old grief. Grief about all this, yes, but also grief that she hadn't seemed to grieve for it as he had.

But grieve she did. She did.

Her hands were trembling as she unbuttoned his collar. Her kiss was wide and deep, her jaw open for him. Desperate and needy.

Her eyes shone as she whispered, "I love you, Severus."

Something crashed over him then, not soft and sweet as the poets would tell it, but overwhelming and greedy and like something knocking him to the ground. Because this fire, this flame, this hunger was a language he spoke. He loved her for who she was, but he also loved her for coming undone for him. 

He loved her for being _his_.

He kissed her, hard, and her head fell back. She gave a keening sound. Her throat bared before him.

He leaned down to kiss her there, sucked, hard enough to leave marks. He knew he should Vanish them but he wanted to see her like that, marked as his. She shivered beneath his mouth and the blood roared in his ears. Her hands were fumbling uselessly at his buttons, and with a sound of frustration, she charmed them open.

Gasping for breath, he rose up to claim her lips again, making clamouring declarations of love into her questing mouth. Found the ribbon at the bodice of her sleek, white wedding gown and began to unlace it. 

She stayed him with her hand. He watched in confusion as she loosened it enough to bare the tops of her breasts, tips visible and peaking, but leaving the dress intact.

"Leave it on," she whispered. Eyes blazing with need. "I want you to take me wearing it."

He froze. Stared at her, his jaw hard and stiff. Like a death-mask. How could she even _ask-_

"It should have been us," she whispered. "All this. It should have been us. I want - this - to be ours."

He pressed his forehead to hers. Hard and sudden. "You don't know what you're asking."

"I _do_ know," she whispered. "I'm yours. In it, out of it. Fuck me in it. Make it ours."

He gave a low, deep sound from the back of his throat, moan and protest and need in one. This irreverent, pleading Narcissa was all new to him, and he didn't know what on earth to say to her.

But he wanted to fuck her. In that fucking dress. Oh, yes.

"All yours," she coaxed. "Any way you want." 

That pushed him right over the edge of any restraint he might have possessed. He pushed her down onto her back, rucking up her dress so he could get to her panties. Tugged them aside, finding her by feel. Descended onto her, _into_ her, that pristine dress crumpled between them, ruined, dank with sweat and with him and with her. 

She stretched her arms out above her head, whispering, "Severus," and he understood what she could not ask. Held her down by them, and was rewarded by her gasp and the way she ground her hips into his. Aching and crying out in total surrender.

"Mine," he growled. "Mine."

"Yes," she whispered. "All yours, Severus."

At the end of it, she may have surrendered, but he couldn't help thinking he'd been the one conquered after all.

* * *

[SEPTEMBER 1980: LUCIUS]

"I'd have thought you'd be with Narcissa. She's keen to see you."

Severus was standing on the terrace in the moonlight in front of him, his stance pensive. He didn't turn around, but said, "I was uncertain of the etiquette. It's your house. I've no wish to intrude."

Lucius came out onto the landing and leaned against the pillar opposite. Shrugged easily and sipped on his drink as Severus came into view. "Narcissa has her own chambers and her own Floo. Her comings and goings, and those of her guests, are her own affair. You're welcome to join us for meals and company, as any houseguest would, but if you prefer to come and go privately, that's fine too."

"Ever the good host," Severus said with a trace of irony.

"I do try."

Severus still wasn't looking at him. He was gazing out over the grounds like they held the answers to the bloody universe. "How was your honeymoon?"

"Pleasant. Too many Muggles. But no Blacks, so it all evened out."

Severus made a grudging sound of amusement, then fell silent.

Lucius waited.

Severus said presently, "Lucius, can I ask you something?"

He inclined his head.

"Did you seduce her?"

Lucius felt an obscure little thrill. So Severus saw him as a threat, even now, did he? How terribly amusing.

Severus had frozen. He'd probably noticed the little smirk that he could feel curling up the corners of his mouth. Lucius schooled his features. If it was anyone else, he'd have yanked their chain a bit, but Narcissa wouldn't take kindly to that.

He said only, "And what if I had, Severus? Would you think less of her?" Lucius was genuinely curious - and angry.

The breath seemed to come back into Severus' lungs. He breathed out in a rush.

"No," he said quietly. "I could not blame her for wanting a real, full marriage, or seeking to build one. But if you misled her about your intentions – before or after the marriage - I would think less of you."

Lucius felt his anger fall away. The predatory tone dropped out of his voice. "Fair enough. No, I didn't. I wouldn't _._ " Severus raised an eyebrow at this, and he added dryly, "You don't believe me, then?"

"Lucius, I think in principle, you'd seduce _anyone_."

He laughed broadly at that. "My good fellow, _must_ you know me so well?"

Severus mustered a wry laugh, too.

"You may find it difficult to believe, but this...arrangement...suits me very well. I don't _want_ a wife who is besotted with me. You may have noticed that I have a very short attention span. If I had a wife who loved me – loved me like _that_ – then I would hurt her, and I don't want that. I am not a cruel man, Severus."

"No," he said slowly. "I believe that, Lucius."

"So. I don't want to compromise this marriage, as I believe it would be compromised by any romantic dealings with Narcissa. And I don't believe she would be receptive, anyway." He went on curiously, "Severus, I understand why you would doubt me. My reputation precedes me, as they say. But did you really doubt _her?_ "

Severus shook his head. Said reluctantly, "I suppose...I find it hard to believe that – that anyone would not love her as I do."

Lucius gave a loud bark of laughter at that. "Gods. You _do_ have it badly for her, don't you?" Severus gave a rather grudging huff of agreement. He went on, "Go on up. She's waiting."

Severus went.

* * *

[SEPTEMBER 1980: NARCISSA]

He was waiting for her when she came out of her toileting antechamber.

"Severus?" she whispered as he rose from the chair beside her bed. Abruptly felt her jaw soften and tremble, and then there were sudden tears streaking down, wet on her face as she hurried into his arms. She clung to him as he made little shushing noises into her hair. Felt every part of her begin to unwind and relax under his touch.

"Narcissa? What is it? Did something happen?" There was a hard note in his voice.

She shook her head hastily, wiping her eyes with her hand. She'd been _fine_ , that was the stupid part; but she'd missed him, craved him, and seeing him, her well-schooled reserve had fallen apart. "No. No, Severus," she assured him. "I had a lovely time. Really. Venice was beautiful. Lucius was sweet. It's just - oh, it's silly."

That taut note relaxed. "Tell me."

She tilted her head up to look at him. Said simply, "It should have been us. That's all."

That seemed to _touch_ something in him, because suddenly his eyes were grey and sad. He leaned down to kiss her, and murmured against her lips, "I kept thinking - maybe I'd lose you - to him."

She shook her head violently. "Never," she hissed. "Every part of me is yours." She was reaching for him, unbuttoning his trousers. " _Severus_."

Had she thought she'd loved him before? she wondered as they fell back. Because looking back, it all seemed so lifeless. Just another restrained moment in the life of Narcissa Black. But this, begging him to consume her, to cover her and pin her...this was bright and colours and vibrance and stars crashing to earth around her as he eclipsed her completely.

She was his, and unknown to any of them, there in the walls of the castle that would send the Dark Lord to his final stand, the circle had begun.

* * *

[31 OCTOBER 1980: LUCIUS]

Narcissa and Severus were waiting in the front parlour when he got home.

It was the night of the Ministry Samhain Ball, and he had gone on his own, claiming that Narcissa was indisposed. It wasn't a lie. She'd been quietly, nondescriptly ill for weeks, and deathly pale and drawn for the last couple of days. He'd asked repeatedly if she would let him send for a Healer, and she'd consistently refused.

Narcissa was pacing before the hearth when he came into the room, and she looked up, her lovely slender neck jerking with a _snap_. "Lucius," she stammered, crossing the room towards him, "come and sit down. We need to talk to you."

Lucius darted his gaze back and forth from Narcissa to Severus, leaning against the mantle, drinking from a brandy balloon. His expression was grave.

"It's like that, is it?" he murmured. "A divorce already? Well, I'll miss you - both of you, oddly enough - but I shan't stand in your way." He sat down on the Chesterfield, looking up at them both, and stretched out. "I imagine you have some thoughts about a settlement." He doubted she would take him to the proverbial cleaners, but then, perhaps she had thoughts of escaping her family and the Dark Lord. She would want money for that. He would let her say her piece before deciding whether to fight her.

Narcissa let out a low, wretched laugh at that. "I'm not here to ask for a divorce. Though I imagine you'll want one when we're done."

Lucius cocked an eyebrow, and said ironically, "Were you, perhaps, about to confess to an affair? Because I have to tell you, Narcissa, that ship has sailed."

She sank down into the armchair by him and buried her head in her hands. " _Fuck,_ you annoying man, will you shut up and _listen?_ " 

She sounded very near tears, and that made him frown and sit forward. Glancing up at Severus, he said, "I'm sorry, Narcissa. Tell me what's troubling you."

Narcissa shuddered a moment, then gave a shaking breath out as she recovered her composure. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I never meant to shame you. We were careful. Honestly, we were. We used charms, and once we'd settled back home, potions, too. Just to be doubly sure."

It took him a moment. He stared at her uncomprehending at first, and then it fell into place. He darted his gaze back and forth, from Narcissa to Severus and back. "You're with child _,_ " he said. It wasn't a question.

She nodded, and then she broke out into wretched, shuddering sobs. Severus came and stood by her, resting his hand on her shoulder. It occurred to him that this was the closest thing he had ever seen to an intimate gesture between them, though Severus spent a good deal of his time at the house.

Lucius frowned. Thinking it over. He said slowly, "You thought I'd be angry."

Narcissa gulped. "Of course, Lucius! To share a home with me is one thing, but to dilute your estate - share it with a child that is not your own, as you would have to if you acknowledged it - or else to be publicly cuckolded - those things are unthinkable. I would never allow you to do such a thing on my account. Of course you must send me away."

Lucius looked up at Severus. "And you? What do you have to say about it?"

Severus looked very white, but he didn't look away. Lucius would have been surprised if he had. "I have no right to a say, Lucius. You've been very generous with us, and we've let you down. I will honour my responsibilities to Narcissa and the child however you see fit."

"If I tell you to take her away, you will do so?"

He nodded.

"If I tell you to go, and leave me and Narcissa to raise the child as our own, you would do that too?"

Severus swallowed hard at that, but he said in a low voice, "I will do whatever is required to mend this. If...if it means the child will - will live, will have a decent life, then yes."

Lucius blinked at that. "Will _live?_ " he demanded, outraged. "You think I would ask her to take Pennyroyal? You think me that kind of a man?"

Severus put down his glass on the mantle with a clatter. " _Think_ , will you? I'm a half-blood. Aside from all issues of legitimacy and inheritance, there is the Dark Lord to consider. Do you not see, Lucius, that if Narcissa has this child, one or all of us may one day be tasked with protecting it from our own Master. I want it - of _course_ I do - but I myself do not know if it is a wise, or safe thing to do."

Narcissa got abruptly to her feet. "Stop it, damn you both! Lucius, you may send me away. Severus, you may allow your precious overlord to make you a eunuch. But if either of you think I will take any herb you have another think coming. If you're with me, wonderful. If you're not, I will leave you both in peace, and promise that no one will ever hear of me or the child again."

"That's not an option," Lucius said, standing too. "Bellatrix will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Andromeda was one thing - Bella didn't have the Mark then. Things are different now."

Narcissa stared at him, her mouth falling open a little. Eyes wide. Clearly this was a factor she had not considered.

"Bella wouldn't-"

Severus locked eyes on his. "Yes," he said gently, nodding. "She would."

Lucius gave a sound of frustration. "Sit down, both of you. We've got to be smart about this."

Narcissa and Severus both stared at him, but both complied. It didn't come naturally to Severus, Lucius thought, but he did it anyway. (So he bloody well should, Lucius thought with a touch of pique).

He leaned against the mantle and outlined the options as he saw them. "If you want this baby, Narcissa, your only realistic choices are to leave, and hope to Merlin you're never found - we could fake an accident, perhaps, although I'd really rather not be tried for your murder - or to hide in plain sight, raising the child as mine." He went on, "With the exception of blood status, the baby fits the requirements of an heir, I suppose. It's related to the Malfoys, distantly, through you."

Severus said, "But there's still blood status. There's nothing we can do about that. The child is one quarter Muggle." He went on more quietly, "I know how important Pure blood is to you, Lucius."

Lucius shot him a look (which hopefully conveyed the message, _You could have thought of that_ before _impregnating my wife_ ), but said, "It's important to our kind more than me, personally. This child is three-quarters Pure, and its ancestry is well-established." He began to pace. "If it remains in our society, hopefully its children will be seven-eighths. Then fifteen-sixteenths. Arguably, it's in the population's best interests for the baby to remain in our society rather than leave it. Consider, Severus, that we don't even know if Pure blood as we know it is viable anymore. There are, what, a couple of dozen Pure families left in England? Our capacity to breed and recover might already have sunk beyond the point of no return."

Severus cocked an eyebrow at that. "So you _favour_ the introduction of rogue Muggle genes?"

"No, but I recognise the potential for benefits. But it must be controlled. At most, a one-time thing into each line, just enough to add diversity and improve physical health, and then over the subsequent generations, we breed it out again. What we don't need is a society where people are diluting the line indiscriminately, without thought for the repercussions." Severus winced.

Narcissa said quietly, "So what are you saying, Lucius? Are you saying you _would_ adopt it?"

This brought him up short. "I don't know," he said softly. "I need to think about this."

"Lucius-"

He held up a hand. "I need to think," he said again.

He was already gone before she could say whatever she was about to say.

* * *

St Teneu's Chapel, in the grounds of the Manor, was rarely used.

It had been used for their wedding, of course, and his father's funeral a month before that. Before that, he supposed it was his own welcoming rite, or possibly the funerals of the unfortunate mothers of his father's dead children.

It had been a Druid place of worship, and a neo-Christian one at times (the Great House of Boleyn had dabbled, to their cost, in Muggle religion and politics; in the end, Muggle-Queen Anne had gone to her execution rather than use magic to save herself, lest the rest of the family be similarly accused and hunted). Now, it was less a place of worship, and more a place of marking comings and goings. By the time the Boleyns had become the Malfoys, the family was thoroughly modern and secular.

Mostly.

It was an old, stone chapel, with open ceiling and windows, designed to receive the air, sun, wind and rain. Various later Christian influences were visible, mainly in the mosaics - Anne had been a devout Protestant - but the circle in the centre, the four pillars, were all much older.

He had never practiced Samhain with any seriousness, but he knew it, of course, and knew his faith well enough to know that the gravest things in life did not happen by accident. In his mind, learning of Narcissa's pregnancy this night was a clear indication that his ancestors wanted their say. And in truth, he _wanted_ their say. What he was considering - and if it were not Narcissa, if they were not facing extinction within one or two generations, he would _never_ have considered it - what he was considering was an enormous break from everything he had sought to defend. It was possible, he thought, that his House _should_ become extinct, rather than pass into hands that were not Pure.

"Lumos," he said softly, lighting the candles at the west pillar. Then the _Incendio_ , to light one bonfire, then a second, on either side of the circle.

He went to the table. It was a Christian altar of the Boleyn era, but its markings were a mix of Christian and Druid. Anne, too, had honoured the ancestors. Beneath the glass top was a collection of artefacts of some of their forefathers. A lock of red hair, said to belong to Anne's baby daughter; a dagger of unknown provenance; a wand; a stack of love letters. Other things, jewellery and books and trinkets, some unrecognisable, covered in moss or tarnished.

Working quickly, he arranged fruits and marigolds on the table. He had picked the fruit from the orchard by hand - they were required to be his own offerings - but he had used magic to levitate into reach. There was little time.

He stood between the bonfires, letting their warmth wash over him, and waited as the wind rose up around him.

"Lucius Malfoy," a female voice said presently, rich and velvety and silky with intelligence and authority. "I am Lady Anne. You have gathered us here to ask us a question."

Rather stupidly, he was relieved that the voice was not his father's. It occurred to him that it might be _the_ Anne; he would never know, but he felt slightly awed at the thought.

He addressed them formally. He said succinctly, "Ancestors. You are aware, I'm sure, of the threat facing our line. My wife carries a child that is not my own. I want to know whether you would accept it as a fit heir. The child shares my bloodline, but distantly, and it is one quarter Muggle. The other lines are Prince and Black. All matrilineal lines are Pure."

Instantly, whispers rose up around him, clamouring in the wind. They were loud and argumentative, and he felt fear like a cold hand closing around his heart. This was uncontrolled. Far removed from the sedately symbolic death-festivals to which he was accustomed. 

The babble went on for some minutes, and he could make out only one, cryptic statement, over and over again.

_And Lady Black, his counterpart-_

"Silence," Lady Anne said at last, and silence fell.

Lucius waited. Awaiting their response. But it was not what he expected. Anne's voice rang out, not with a ruling, but a command.

"You will welcome the child, and guard it even to the ends of your own life. You will shield its mother and its father as you would shield that which is most dear to you. You will tell no one, not even the one you love above all else. If you do not, Lucius Malfoy, more than one noble House will fall."

Lucius felt the blood drain from his face. Horror was rising, washing over him. Dread falling on him and pooling in his belly like molten lead.

He whispered, " _What is this child?_ "

"Just a boy, nothing more," she replied. "But he is a lynchpin on which other things depend. Heed us, Lucius Malfoy. It is not for you to know. It is for you to obey."

Completely unravelled now, he stammered out, "All right. I will."

The voice softened. Suddenly kind, like a cool hand on a fevered brow. "You will find the courage when the time comes, Lucius, though you will not believe that you have it until that moment. You will look on eyes that are kind, and you will know the moment for what it is."

He felt something wash over him, dizzying relief and gratitude, thinly layered over the top of stone cold terror. "Thank you."

In the distance, he heard the Wiltshire town clock chime midnight, end of the Samhain, and the wind and the voices fell away.

He sank down on the stone floor in the sudden, deathly silence, and he sat there, shaking, for a very long time.

* * *

[DECEMBER 1980: SEVERUS]

 _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies-_  
  
Severus examined the overheard-snippet and his own folly in reporting it to the Dark Lord. 

This was a well-worn form of torture, trudging its way along familiar tracks in his mind. It was not the first time. It wasn't even the first time that day.

Not that there was any truth to it, of course. Everyone knew Sybill Trelawney was stark raving mad, and even if she weren't, how could a mere child vanquish Voldemort himself?

And how was he to know he would get Narcissa with child within weeks of passing the prophecy on? Fate was a funny thing indeed.

"Severus?"

Lucius' voice roused him from his reverie. "Sorry, I was distracted. What is it?"

"You must have been, old chap. It's not like you to let your guard down. Not even at home."

Severus shrugged. "I'm among friends." It was the highest compliment he could give, and Lucius apparently took it as such, because he smiled broadly over his glass.

"Even so. What's got you so thoughtful?"

In that moment, Severus made a split-second decision - one that he would live to regret. But for now, the wider ramifications of his decision remained unknown to him, and his deliberations lay closer to home. 

"I was thinking that the baby is due in late July," he said slowly, moving away from his stance by the fire and sitting down on the Chesterfield. 

"What of it?"

"I was thinking, perhaps, that we could say he was born in early June. You and Narcissa were Venice in August and September."

"Ah, yes, our purported honeymoon," Lucius smirked. "Quite a pleasant trip, actually, although more for me than for her. I'm afraid I deserted her for the gentlemen's clubs more than once. She said she didn't mind. I'm a terrible bore at museums and art galleries and such, apparently. I find my commentary much more amusing than she does."

Severus allowed himself a twitch of the corners of his lips. "I find that very hard to believe."

"Oh, please, Severus. I can't abide flattery." Lucius was smirking even wider, if that was possible.

"Lucius, you _live_ for flattery," he said dryly. 

" _Must_ you know me so well? So your idea is that there should be no question at all about paternity, is that it?"

Severus nodded. "An extra layer of protection, if you will." Quite truthfully, he added, "I do not underestimate the danger you are putting yourself in to help us, Lucius."

Lucius' gaze flickered up to meet his, very quickly, all good humour gone. "There's no need to discuss that again," he said curtly. "The pregnancy has been announced. It's done."

"Very well. You know of my gratitude. Let's speak no further of it."

Lucius looked away, into the fire. "We can't say she gave birth and then fail to produce a baby. What do you propose we do for the last five or six weeks?"

"We can put it about in May that she's had trouble with the pregnancy and has gone into an early confinement to attempt to save it. Then, after the baby is really born, we can say it was born, small but alive in early June."

"And we didn't announce it until we were sure it would live," Lucius supplied. "Not as commonly done these days, but not unheard of. Hell, the welcoming rite still references the danger period. Not bad, Severus. Not bad at all."

"The Dark Lord won't question the absence of news?" Severus wondered. It was the only possible flaw in the plan he could see.

Lucius scoffed. "Come, Severus. Have you ever seen him concern himself with women's business? He would think it more odd if I mentioned it. Narcissa could have triplets and it wouldn't register on his mind."

 _Unless they were born at the end of July,_ Severus thought.

The old woman was crazy. Of course she was. There _was_ no warrior-child, due end of July or not.

But his own child was due in the second half of July, and in concealing the truth of its paternity, all three of them had defied him once. That made three times in total. And when it came to Narcissa and the baby, Severus wasn't taking any chances.

But everything was under control. He had hedged his bets. Even if the baby arrived in the last days of the month, the Dark Lord would never learn of it. Their devotion to the cause was strong, but their devotion to their family was stronger, and it would protect their child.

Everything was going to be all right.

* * *

[31 JULY 1981: NARCISSA]

"A beautiful boy, darling."

The look on Lucius' face was taut as he leaned over her and kissed her forehead. 

"Lucius?" she said in question.

He shook his head. "It's nothing, darling. We're just very glad you're all right. If labour had gone another night -" he seemed to pause here, as though terribly conflicted by the thought "- it might have been too much for you." He leaned past her and dipped her facecloth into water, and wiped her forehead. "I hope you don't mind - as soon as the baby came I sent Severus off to Hogwart's. It would look very odd if he missed his very first school meeting. At least it's holidays, so he's not expected to reside in. He'll be back soon."

She beamed a smile at him. "Very sensible of you, dear. Most likely I'll hold the little thing a while and then sleep, anyway." 

He nodded. "Dobby's cleaning him up now. It won't be long."

"Birth's a messy business, isn't it? I can't imagine how families without elves do it." She added eagerly, "What does he look like, Lucius?"

"Dark," he said. "Severus' hair. Your nose, thank Merlin."

Narcissa laughed. "That's rather awful," she said without rancour. She added, "We've decided to make him blonde, you know. There are potions."

Lucius stared at her. "What?"

"You've looked after us. You should - get to feel like he's yours. I want us to make you proud. It's the least we can do."

Lucius swallowed and looked away. She'd touched him.

"I'm sure he'll grow up to - to do great things," he said in a strangled voice. Later, she would think that was a strange way of putting it. 

Now, she said sleepily, "I like that. My Draco. Doing great things."

He planted another, gentle kiss on her forehead, and he left her.

* * *

[31 JULY 1981: SEVERUS]

"I hear there's a prophecy," Lucius said tightly, peering at him over his brandy balloon. 

Severus took a sip from his own. Said mildly, "Indeed."

"A baby born yesterday or today," he added pointedly. "I also hear Lily Evans gave birth in the early hours of this morning. We wouldn't have known if she hadn't gone into labour in St Mungo's visiting the Longbottom baby. They kept her pregnancy quiet, didn't they?"

"I suppose people seeking to defy the Dark Lord would be rather - careful - about announcing a tactical weakness."

"You'd know all about that," Lucius said coldly. "Is that why we lied about Draco's birth? The prophecy? Is that why you've been quite suddenly hired just this day at Hogwart's?"

"No," Severus said. An outright lie twice over. "The former potions master was caught _in flagrante_ with a student this morning. They had to replace him immediately, and they're quite difficult posts to fill - most potions experts have highly-paid positions with the hospitals or the apocetharies. Dumbledore approached me, assuming I would be impoverished and willing. The Dark Lord thought it would be an excellent opportunity." He knew he was giving too much detail - people like Lucius did not explain themselves unnecessarily, and did not trust others who did. It suggested subservience. But when it came to Draco, Severus was finding, the usual rules didn't seem to apply.

Lucius waved his explanation aside for the piece of flimsy it was. He said with a grim tone of warning, "Severus, in acknowledging Draco, I have committed myself to him. I don't know what game you're playing, but if you let this Lily Evans business shake your nerve, or you put Draco or Narcissa in danger, I swear I will kill you myself." He gave a few little, angry, huffing breaths until his face had levelled out into its usual placid expression. Added with a raised glass and only a touch of irony, "Congratulations."

Severus held his expression, one of mild curiosity, and inclined his head and raised his glass too.

In that moment, he was less afraid of the Dark Lord than he was of Lucius Malfoy.

* * *

[AUGUST 1981: SEVERUS]

 _In doing this,_ Severus thought, _all three of us have defied him now._

He thought this at the welcoming ceremony held under cover of darkness in the chapel of St Teneu.

All three of them took elements, the earth, the water, the fire. All three of them added blood to the fire, and as the four of them breathed the smoke that danced around them, they became blood with one another and the baby with them all. But while it was truth for them, and true in a magical sense as well, it would never be true for the Dark Lord.

To the Dark Lord, this child would be another half-blood, and worse, the means of extinction of two Pureblood lines. None of them would have another child to compete with this one - that much had been agreed (and Lucius had suggested it, to Severus' astonishment). That left no one in the Malfoy line, and only Bellatrix among the Blacks. And Severus did not believe anything so deeply poisoned as Bellatrix could bring anything to birth at all.

He watched as Lucius cradled the child, mop of black hair clearly visible. He tried to imprint it on his memory; it was the only time he would see it so. He would take a back seat to Lucius in Draco's life; he had accepted that, and made peace with the idea of Lucius as his son's father. Lucius was not a nice man in any objective sense, but he was fanatical about family - and for whatever reason he had chosen Narcissa and Severus and Draco to be part of it. And the truth was, it was unlikely Severus would make any better a father himself. He hadn't had any role models for it, after all.

Severus wondered, not for the first time, at the complete equanimity of Lucius at the whole situation. Not that it was without precedent; arranged marriages coupled with _arrangements_ happened all the time. But Lucius could be a hard and greedy man. It seemed odd that those traits could co-exist with his completely _un_ -possessive attitude to Narcissa, who he seemed to honestly adore.

 _Maybe,_ Severus thought, _he genuinely has never been in love._

This, at least, would make sense. The idea that Lucius might have been in love and thus sympathise with their plight was...ludicrous. Lucius was not an empathic man. 

But the idea that he was completely oblivious to that whole range of emotion, that he could be genuinely committed to his dear friend and see no threat at all in the other, parallel commitment between _them_...that made a strange sort of sense. Love could be gentle and kind, he supposed - the poets certainly seemed to think so - but it was just as often urgent and desperate and greedy. Things Lucius seemed to know nothing about at all.

If that was so, Severus thought, it was a pity. But for Narcissa and Draco's sake, he supposed it was also just as well.

  


COMING IN ACT TWO: A FOLLY'D LOVE BEGUN WITH LIES


	2. Act Two: Maîtresse-en-titre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Maîtresse-en-titre**. After years of indulging Narcissa and Severus, oblivious to the mastery of romantic love, Lucius learns first-hand about the craziness and folly of loving the wrong person. This one is Nymphadora Tonks, the spy sent to betray him.

[](http://fiction.deslea.com/sonsjulycover600x789_lq.jpg)  
Now with gorgeous cover art by [ellygator](http://ellygator.deviantart.com).

 

 **ACT TWO  
** Maîtresse-en-titre  
  
 _A folly'd love begun with lies_  
 _Finds its truth in sacrifice_  
\-- Sybill Trelawney, 30 July 1997

 

[SEPTEMBER 1995: NARCISSA]

"Lucius, darling, you look glorious this evening. I don't believe I've ever seen you so...so..."

"Radiant?" he suggested with a sideways smirk. "Glowing?"

Narcissa shot him a withering look and handed him his aperitif. "Vain will suffice for the moment. What's brought this on? You look like a cat who's eaten the proverbial canary."

That smirk broadened. "Our rather ghastly fundraiser just got interesting. You simply won't believe who's bought a ticket, and well outside her financial means at that. And she's expressed great interest in being seated beside me to discuss the Children's Dragon Pox Disfigurement Fund despite being, as far as I can tell, entirely disinterested in either medicine or fundraising. So I rather fancy she might have ulterior motives of a most enjoyable nature."

Narcissa cocked an eyebrow. "Do tell, darling. Who is it?"

"Your niece, of all people. Nymphadora Tonks."

Narcissa blinked a little; it occurred to him that she may have forgotten she _had_ a niece. "The Auror?"

"Correct."

"The half-blood."

"Also correct."

"Associate of the Order of the Phoenix."

"Check."

Narcissa raised an eyebrow. Said shrewdly, "Trap?"

"Probably." He was still smirking.

"And what do you think you'll _do?_ "

"I find myself both amused and intrigued. I think I shall let her seduce me. All in the name of finding out what she's up to, of course."

Narcissa burst out laughing. "Oh, Lucius, you really are incorrigible. Would you like me to see if Severus knows anything?"

"I think it's far more fun this way. Don't you?"

She wiped her eyes and sighed. Clinked her glass to his. "Have it your way."

He smirked even wider. Said archly:

"Well, I'll certainly try."

* * *

[SEPTEMBER 1995: LUCIUS]

Nymphadora Tonks was flirting outrageously.

An outrageous flirt himself, Lucius was not fooled, but he was highly amused. 

She had the usual tricks down to a fine art, of course. The hair flicking, the licking of the lips, the leaning in when she laughed. The teasing foot stroking idly up his calf. (Oldest trick in the book, that one, but it got him deliciously in the groin every time). All the usual opening gambits had eventuated, right on schedule. 

He was enjoying himself immensely.

Narcissa played her part just as well, shooting her society lady friends tight pained little smiles as they tried valiantly to distract her. She allowed her mouth to settle into a scowl now and then, when she _appeared_ to think no one was looking. Oh, yes, Narcissa had been born to the role of the Long-Suffering Wife of a Scoundrel Husband. It was in her blood, like every miserable Black wife before her. Druella had taught her well.

Midway through the evening, Nymphadora excused herself to go to the powder room. (She called it the _loo,_ which made several of Narcissa's society ladies wince visibly, and that only amused Lucius more). Narcissa shot Lucius a glowering look.

Lucius beamed her a beatific smile. Said warmly, "Oh, darling, don't be jealous. I'm just having a bit of fun." He leaned in and kissed her cheek and said in a low voice, "Don't hold back. She's half-blood. _One_ of us has to disapprove."

Narcissa hissed waspishly, loud enough for her nearest neighbours to hear, "Lucius, if you want to play in the muck, that's your business, but if you bed that _creature_ , don't think you'll be coming to _my_ bedchamber any time soon."

He drew away, and said coldly, "I wouldn't dream of sullying your _pristine_ bed, Narcissa, I assure you." Narcissa gave a little huff and a toss of her hair that would have done her godawful mother proud, and turned her back on him entirely.

Appearances so managed, he turned his attention completely to Nymphadora when she returned, looking both ridiculous and radiant with her neo-Victorian corset, absurdly short skirt, and shock of purple hair. "Hullo," she said. "What have I missed?"

"Nothing important, my dear," he said. "Would you like to dance?"

Nymphadora dropped down inelegantly on the chair beside him. "Oh, _no_. I'm awfully uncoordinated. I'd trip over my own bloody feet, and step on yours into the bargain."

Lucius felt an unexpected jolt, a frisson of interest from nowhere. Dancing was the logical next step in her seduction, and her varying from script suggested strongly that she was telling the truth. It was probably the first time all evening. 

He felt like a curtain had been parted, giving a glimpse of something beyond. Like the shadow of a breast when a woman leaned _just so_. Just for a moment, he thought he had seen the woman they called Tonks, the woman known only from passing glimpses in corridors at the Ministry. The real woman, the one _behind_ Nymphadora, who attended functions outside her pay grade and played footsie with an older man in front of his wife.

Fleetingly, he wondered what Tonks - not Nymphadora, but Tonks - would look like with her hair splayed out over a pillow, unguarded and spent.

"Well, it's up to you, my dear, but in my experience, all a lady needs is to be led with a firm hand." He smirked, letting the outrageous statement hang there a moment. "On the dance floor, of course."

Nymphadora smirked too. "Well, I'm game if you are, I suppose." She held out her hand. "Lead on, Lucius."

He did lead her, but before too much time had passed, he would reflect that he'd been following all along.

* * *

Neo-Victorian fashion had much to recommend it.

He thought this as his hand found the flesh at the top of her stockings beneath her angular skirt. She was leaning against the wall, wriggling against him with the most delightful little sounds, urging down to meet his hand. The stars winked above them and the muted sounds of the party drifted along the balcony on the breeze.

"If you think I'm going to let you take me right here against a wall like a common whore, you've got another think coming," she said in half-hearted and entirely conventional protest.

"Now, now. There's nothing wrong with whores," he protested with a wolfish smile. "I'm one myself."

She laughed at that, a real, sudden, throaty laugh, nothing like the flirty giggles of earlier in the evening. It tumbled from her lips like a spray of diamonds. He'd surprised it out of her, he was sure of it, and again he felt that thrill of a glimpse of something hidden.

"Randy little sod," she said without rancour.

"Not at all," he said mildly. "This one's all for you." She got as far as lifting one supremely surprised brow before he found her warm and wet, and she drew in her breath in a hiss. Suddenly shivering and staring down between them as he sank his fingers deep into her. 

He took his time, shifting, finding where they _fit_. Knew it from her sounds, her pitch slipping from high tones of arousal, to rolling, bass notes of satisfaction. He stayed there, seated within her, pulsing minutely with his fingertips as she closed around him and rocked him, setting her own pace. He held her firm there, keeping her grounded as she gave way completely.

She reached for him with trembling hands, and he ached for her, but he stopped her.

"Next time," he whispered low into her ear. "Next time, I collect."

He stole one deep, slow kiss, and then he left her there in the crisp night air, shuddering and completely undone.

* * *

Narcissa was alone when he took his place at her side.

They didn't look at one another, perfect picture of chilly domestics, but her voice was low and warm. "Did you get what you wanted, darling?"

He allowed himself a smile out of the side of his mouth. "Let's say I made a downpayment."

"Oh, _Lucius,_ " she said, appalled _._ "I don't know how you do it, and with such an _awful_ line, too."

"By the time they're at that point, my dear, the quality of my repartee is the last thing on their minds."

Narcissa snorted. "Don't look now, but she's just come in, suitably dishevelled. Lucius Malfoy leaves another satisfied witch in his wake."

He said smugly, "I do, don't I?"

"Don't be so full of yourself. Pride comes before a fall, Lucius."

He dismissed this with a wave. "Please. It's all in good fun."

There was a note of amusement in her voice. "One day, Lucius, someone's going to hit you like a ton of bricks, and you'll finally understand what all this love business is about. Then what will you do?"

"I shall be perfectly sensible about it. It's the only way."

At this, Narcissa broke out in real, gentle laughter.

"Oh, darling. Sometimes I think you know nothing at _all_."

* * *

[SEPTEMBER 1995: TONKS]

On the whole, Tonks thought as she cast aside the accoutrements of her costume (to call it an _outfit_ was being too generous), the evening had gone well.

Lucius' sexual expertise had been a bonus, but not entirely unexpected. The man had been whoring around Europe for decades. And while good looks would have carried him into his early thirties, a man needed an edge to keep it up into his forties - especially with an anaemic but glowering wife right there beside him.

More interesting was the fact that he wasn't - well - _vile_ ,much as it pained her to admit it. He'd been a perfectly pleasant conversational companion, and she had not been prepared for that. At all. 

It wasn't that he'd held back from his opinions. She'd have been surprised if he had. After all, chasing tail was one thing, but a man like Lucius Malfoy was arrogant enough to think his looks and expertise and - and _voice_ (holy _fuck_ , that voice) would get the women in the door anyway. If not under the table.

So he hadn't held back. He'd been forthright - and _rational._ That was, she thought, the most insidious thing about it. Of _course_ Magical blood was precious. Of _course_ it had to be protected. Of _course_ , Muggles should be left alone - as long as they left the Magical community alone and untainted. 

But if they did not? Well, they had to protect the things that were precious. Didn't they?

Tonks had asked archly what he made of _her._ He'd dismissed this with a wave of his hand. She had strong, incontestable magic in her veins (and through her mother's line, which he seemed to consider far more credible than the father's. She supposed in a society where infertility and adoption were common, paternity was a relative footnote - so long as the blood was still beyond reproach). It was diluted, and that was unfortunate, but generations of breeding with _her kind_ would take care of that. 

Tonks had almost choked on that, but held her peace.

The thing was, she understood how such mildly expressed opinions could seem mere points of political difference. In an ordinary world, a world without Voldemort, they might have been just that. Lucius without Voldemort viewed half-bloods - at least first-generation ones - as unfortunates who just needed the Muggle bred out of them. That was an ugly, bigoted thing, but no worse than she had heard from half the people she worked with in the Ministry itself.

Was this how it started in Muggle Germany, she wondered? Protectionism of one's own kind, separatism, ugly but no more than that? And then Grindelwald had spoken softly into a fanatic's ear, or so the legend went. Was that all it took? A breaking down of barriers in otherwise perfectly ordinary people? She supposed it had to be so; there just weren't enough sociopaths to go around.

She tried to reconcile _this_ Lucius with the Lucius who had attended Voldemort's return in Little Hangleton. He'd responded quickly to the call of the Mark, Harry had said, but then, she supposed failure to do so was a one-way ticket to an early grave. Severus himself had paid dearly for his delay; he had a host of new scars to prove it. Even Sirius had shut the fuck up about Severus that night. It had taken her and Molly and Remus together to heal him.

Harder to reconcile was that Lucius, ordinary, surprisingly-charming Lucius, had sat by and watched Harry being fought by a madman, had stood by and watched the murder of Cedric Diggory.

"You forget, Nymphadora," Severus had said a week ago, "that he has a wife and child to think of. He couldn't have won. He could only have killed them all trying."

Tonks had snorted. "Evil happens when good people do nothing."

"You're not a parent," Severus said quietly. "You don't understand. With exceptions - Bella, mostly - it isn't hate that holds Death Eaters in service. It's love. He learns their weak spots and uses them. The sooner you understand that, the better placed you'll be."

Tonks suspected then that Severus knew of her mission, but he had never spoken of it to her. On the whole, she was glad.

Watching the Pureblood society microcosm up close had been an eye opener of its own, more mundane but no less revealing. While Narcissa was obviously displeased at Lucius' poor taste in flirting publicly, there'd been no sign of true jealousy. Tonks was glad; that had been her one qualm about the whole exercise. She felt female solidarity of sorts with Narcissa, and was relieved that her response appeared to be long-suffering aggravation and nothing deeper than that.

Carefully, she hung her clothes in the space she had made in her closet for what she would come to call her Lucius wardrobe. In time, she would linger over that space, touching clothes like relics that had awakened another side of her completely, but that was in the time to be. 

Shrugging lightly, she made her way into her bathroom and ran the bath. She was a shower person mostly - baths were a bloody waste of time in her view; by the time you fiddled around running the thing you could have been cleaned and dressed. But she wanted a bath tonight. 

It wasn't that she felt _dirty_. She supposed some women would have, but Tonks did not. She liked sex and she liked her work and she wasn't committed to anyone. As a bonus, Lucius showed all signs of becoming a perfectly enjoyable shag. If she had to compare herself to anyone, she thought it was probably the Muggle French Resistance girls in the forties, shrewd and detached and full of pluck, using their wiles without shame and damn the consequences. Only she supposed they were graceful like Fleur Delacour and didn't trip over their own damn feet.

So it wasn't any metaphorical need to scrub Lucius, or the evening, off her. It was just...she was wound up tight. Needing release. 

It wasn't sexual release, or not exactly that. Not that he hadn't awakened her; he had, but he'd also satisfied her, rather more than she was used to from just kisses and hands. But she was unsettled at the part she had played, and unsettled at how much she had _enjoyed_ it.

She sank down into the water, thinking it over. Tonks was not given to self-reflection - didn't have the bloody patience for it - but Dumbledore had warned her to remain self-aware at every turn. Failure would mean going back to square one at best, or potentially her own death at worst. And in either event, it was unlikely another would be allowed close again. She was the only young woman in the Order who was not _too_ young; the only one with good enough blood credentials (however tainted) to possibly access that world.

There was Severus, of course, but Severus was a gentleman teacher and no more than that. He was respected as an intellectual, liked even, but there were places he could not go - not even as the purported right hand of Voldemort. There were fundraisers he could attend, and the private Death Eater revels were open to him too. But there were private parties - places where people let their hair down - that Severus was both too low-born and too high in the pecking order to attend. These were the places Tonks hoped to access. With tongues loosened by alcohol and privacy (and, in Lucius' case, a shagging he'd never forget), she hoped to identify who would stand by Voldemort to the end - and, more importantly, who would weaken and fall away.

So she reflected there, submerged in the water. Turning it over and trying to get a handle on what it meant. Reflected on what it was to be a Metamorphagus. To be _other_. 

It wasn't the first time she'd done it, of course. She'd been old ladies and teenage boys and ducks and all _sorts_ of things. It had been something she'd done for work, for fun, to amuse others, to amuse herself. 

But this had been different somehow. She hadn't been so much _other_ as another part of _herself_. And when Lucius had guided, she'd found that she liked to yield to him. Found it was like sinking into something decadent, drinking something intoxicating and sweet. Something she would never have thought in a million years about herself. It surprised her, and she didn't like that Lucius Malfoy had surprised her. She didn't like it at all.

It was, she thought, to do with mastery. That was the word. He'd played her like a bloody pianist. And oh, _fuck_ , the double-entendre brought a flush to her throat and up into her cheeks as she remembered him exploring her, finding places no one had ever found before. Not the spot the Muggle magazines expounded on at length, but something else. A perfect join. Like a mortise and tendon. 

It wasn't so much that he'd found it. It was that he knew to _look_. That he knew something about her and what she needed, that she would want to be held there, held _steady_ there. That if he gave her those seconds to catch up to him, she would melt around him, every wall falling away. 

It dawned on her that Lucius genuinely liked women, and liked to please them. Had devoted years to learning to decipher their cues, perhaps without even realising he was doing it. She thought with a chill that if he had anywhere near as much insight into women _out_ of bed as in it, she might be in for more than she'd bargained for.

She would wonder later if that was the moment she should have turned back, or if even then it was already too late.

* * *

[NOVEMBER 1995: TONKS]

"Lucius, why did you want to do this?"

Tonks was laying before him in his bedchamber, stretched out, covered in a thin film of oil. It was, she thought, a scene from every bad Muggle chickflick she'd ever seen. It seemed ridiculously contrived, but it wasn't objectionable, so she'd humoured him.

Besides, a girl could get used to being pampered.

"Because," he said, stroking down her belly in sweeping motions, "I didn't think you'd let me."

She laughed at that. "You're perverse. Why didn't you think I'd let you?"

He paused then, letting his hands rest lightly on her hipbones, gentle yet possessive. Careful not to break contact. "Because. You know how to have fun with sex, and you know how to tackle your prey in the most _gratifying_ way, but you don't know how to luxuriate in it. You don't know how to be adored."

"Is that a nice way of saying I'm shallow?" she smirked up at him.

"No, it's a nice way of saying you haven't found anyone worthy of you yet." 

He had resumed his attentions, looking down at her hips as he stroked over them and back up her sides, so he couldn't see the way she suddenly closed her eyes tight. Mortified, she swallowed down hard, and arched her neck so he couldn't see her face. He'd hit a nerve she hadn't known she'd had.

He mistook the gesture. Stroked down her throat, slowly, and over her shoulders, then leaned over her to kiss her behind her ear. "Breathe through it," he said in a low voice. And suddenly her arousal _was_ rising, just like he thought it was, just because he was near and he was hers.

She started to tense, just a little. Wanting him, wanting to close around him, and he wasn't there. She clutched blindly for his hand.

"Breathe," he said again. Gently stroked down over the tendon in her thigh. "All in good time." Urgently, she searched for his lips and found them. He kissed her, hard like she wanted but then slowing, easing her back onto the pillow. Knelt back up between her thighs and started to stroke her again. 

She stared up at him. Totally unnerved at the effect he seemed to have on her sometimes. She said shakily, "Who taught you to do this?"

A lazy smirk crossed his face. "A courtesan in Venice. Narcissa and I went there on our honeymoon."

"Your _honeymoon_?"

"Well, it wasn't a completely conventional marriage even then, obviously, but consider the families we came from. Wouldn't _you_ take the excuse to get away for a couple of months?"

She gave a little sign of concession and nodded for him to continue.

"Anyway. She was at least twice my age, but old-school. The kind of courtesan who treats it as an art form rather than a job. That's what a lot of men who pay for sex are after, you know. Somewhere to let all the strictures fall away."

Her mouth twitched. "And sex."

"That, too," he agreed. "Not every wife can live with who her husband is in the bedroom, I suspect."

She asked, hesitantly, "Is that what happened with you and Narcissa?"

"Narcissa and I," Lucius said quietly, pausing his movements over her body, "want different things, and we don't want them from each other. But she's a good woman and a good friend. I won't hear her spoken badly of."

"I didn't mean it like that." She'd crossed a line.

He relented. "I know." Seemingly by way of explanation, he added, "Sorry. Narcissa says my Familiar should have been a wolf."

Tonks looked at him quizzically. "Explain."

"They're mercenary to outsiders, but devoted to and protective of the pack. That's me, I suppose." He held out his arm, Dark Mark visible. "I took it to follow my father, you know. It was never any more ideological than that."

She stared at it with dread fascination. Wondered if that was true, or something he'd said for her benefit. Suspected the truth was something in between.

She mustered a smile. "You're trying to tell me Muggle-baiting held no attraction for you, then, Lucius?"

He gave a broad grin at that. "I'd rather chase women than Muggles." Smirking, he skirted his fingertips across the tips of her breasts to emphasise the point, and she shivered. "Now come, Nymphadora, the idea of this is for you to let go. Stop talking and relax."

"But-"

He leaned over her once more, and kissed her slowly on the lips. "Let me," he whispered between kisses, "adore you."

She felt suddenly breathless.

He went back to work on her, his touch maddeningly non-sexual. Oh, he stroked the sideswell of her breast, brushed gently past the tangle of hair at the top of her thighs, but more of his attention went to parts of her she'd never given the slightest thought to before.

It was when he got to her hand that she felt something start to _break_ inside her. Perhaps it was something about his intent expression as he dipped his head to delicately kiss the heel of her palm. It wasn't what he was doing to her. It was what she was doing to him.

" _Lucius,_ " she whispered. Cupped his cheek with her hand. Levered herself up with her elbow to face him. 

"Nymphadora-"

"No," she said softly. Gently, possessively, she threaded her hand further back, into his hair, cradling him behind his ear. "My turn."

Something in her expression must have quieted his protest, because he fell still. Watching her with grave eyes as she took a little oil in her hands. 

Shivering lightly, she ran her hands up over his chest. Over his shoulders. Up the sides of his neck and down again, tracing tendons. Felt the ridges in her forehead deepen as she studied him. Felt muscles fluttering under her palms, felt the way he breathed and let them grow still.

She wondered from nowhere if this was how he kept his mettle around Voldemort. 

Protectiveness flooded through her, and her pressure on his shoulders deepened. "Lucius," she whispered, suddenly urgent, and drew him to her in a tangle of demanding, desperate kisses.

When he was inside her, that breaking, splintering _thing_ in herself shattered completely, like shards of glass showering over her as she cried out against his lips. Leaving her open and letting him in under her skin.

They stared wide-eyed at each other when it was over, knowing that something had changed radically between them. 

Her only comfort was that he was as far in over his head as she.

* * *

[DECEMBER 1995: LUCIUS]

Nymphadora was sitting opposite him in a long filmy white robe, reading the paper, her cup of tea at her side.

It was a mild day, and Pinky had opened the French doors. Sunlight framed her like a halo. Her hair was silver today, and it gleamed around her. He felt his mouth go dry, and his breath _catch_ , somehow.

He set down his knife and fork down on the table. They made a little _clink_.

She looked up. "Lucius," she said softly. "What-"

He got to his feet, pushing his chair aside with a clatter. Breathing hard. Strode around the table to face her, standing in her space. She rose, perhaps in bewilderment, perhaps in affront, but he tugged her hard against him, and kissed her. Deep and desperate and slow. Her hand pushed back at him on reflex, but she was gripping his shirt and falling open beneath him with a high-pitched sigh that brought him completely undone. He edged her back against the table, until she was half-perched on the edge, her bare toes just barely touching the floor.

"Lucius," she gasped out, "the breakfast-"

" _Fuck_ breakfast," he growled, thrusting out his arm wordlessly, and her tea and plates and the candelabra were swept down the table as though by an unseen hand. He leaned over her, and she yielded, sinking back, her head resting on the flower centrepiece, all white and yellow around her. "I _love_ you, you understand?" he demanded, his voice trembling with something that might have been fury. "I _love_ you."

She drew in her breath, staring up at him. Breaths shallow. Eyes wide. "Lucius, I-"

"Don't," he said harshly. He didn't want to hear whatever Dumbledore had told her to say when this moment came. "God, _don't_. Just be with me."

She was terribly, terribly pale, and her eyes were soft and suddenly red as she lay there before him. She nodded. Whispered, "Love me, Lucius."

He straightened, his eyes never leaving her as she leaned up on her elbows before him. Unfastened his breeches, and his dress shirt, letting them fall open. He reached for her, untying the sash at her waist and pushing her robe apart, baring the velvety flesh of her breasts and her belly. Her thighs had fallen open around him, and she was framed by white silk and flowers and damask and silvery hair and he had to be inside her, had to submerge himself into whiteness and softness and warmth.

She tilted her jaw, baring her throat. Still staring up at him. "Lucius - please -"

He leaned forward, kissing her throat, his flesh lightly brushing hers. His shirt falling over her belly and her breasts rising and falling beneath his chest. She gave a longing sound that was almost a sob. Drew her knees up to press his thighs, to urge him into her, and he eased back and forth against her, bringing her alive beneath him until she was pushing back, hard and needy, trying to meet him and draw him inside her. She was wet already, like the same things that had flooded him had flooded her.

Finally, he relented, finding her opening and thrusting home, sinking down into her as she fell back, banging her head on the table, not caring, gasping and catching his mouth with hers. Her eyes were red and her lips tasted of tears and he _knew_ , knew that he had touched her as she had touched him. Every fibre of her being was telling her not to love him, and she loved him anyway.

"Yes," he muttered, "you love me. Oh, yes."

"Lucius," she said desperately. Jerking to meet him every time he slid fully into her. Gripping him hard within her, as though by so doing she need never let him go. Her hands were twined deep into his hair but she wouldn't look at him.

"Yes," he insisted. "Tell me."

"Lucius," she whispered again. It was meant to be a protest and it came out as a caress. This time she was looking up at him, and a single tear streaked out of the corner of her eye, down into her hair.

" _Tell me_ ," he growled, stroking into her hard. He ached when she pushed back just as hard, as they ground into each other, the closest even this act would allow them to come.

" _Yes_ ," she choked out, sound of wretched defeat as he spilled over inside her. "Yes." And then she wept silently as he slowed, as he held her, as they lay there on the table still joined, connection slackened but not gone. Clung to him and desperately sought his mouth, moving with him as he came alive once more. "Please," she cried. "Please oh please yes-"

They joined twice more on the table that day, but really, the joining never ended at all.

* * *

[APRIL 1996: NARCISSA]

Lucius was whistling when she came down for morning tea.

"Lucius, darling," Narcissa said, ducking around him to steal a piece of his toast as she passed. "My ragamuffin niece is certainly good for your disposition. I don't think I've seen you this happy since-"

She broke off, toast poised in mid-air. Wrinkled her brow at him uncertainly. And then, slowly, her good humour fell away.

"Since when?" Lucius said, looking up from his paper. He took the remains of his toast back from her, and added as an aside, "Honestly, woman. I'm sure Severus doesn't let you steal his food."

"Never," she said softly with sudden dread. "I've never seen you like this. Ever."

Lucius looked back down at his paper. "Nonsense."

Impulsively, she drew her wand. "It's _not_ nonsense," she snapped. " _Legilimens!_ "

She'd caught him off-guard, and she was in his mind before he could hold her back. She strode through in furious strides. Nymphadora was everywhere, bathed in light and colour. A tinkling laugh here, a touch there. And - oh God - their table. The table where Lucius was sitting now. Wretched, tortured declarations of love as they rose and fell together. It coloured everything. It coloured his whole world.

 _Fuck._  
  
Narcissa pushed through the clamouring, cloying images of Nymphadora and searched for Draco. Searched _hard_. Draco going off to Hogwart's for the first time. Genuine pride in the boy, fierce protectiveness, too. His first Quidditch game. His first _tooth_. And oh, Draco's hair. How he loved Draco's hair. How he loved the way the boy took after him. A cacophony of images and sounds, baby laughter, climbing up stairs, first steps - it flooded over her in a dizzying rush.

She felt the cold hand around her heart loosen, just a little. Whatever shambles his mind was in, his walls around Draco were strong. Even now.

Narcissa pulled out of Lucius' mind, as rudely and abruptly as she'd entered. Leaned over him, her palms on the table. He stared up at her, unnerved and outraged.

"He'll kill you both!" she shouted. "Don't you understand that? Guard your mind! Love her if you must, but dear God, guard your mind!" She pushed away from the table in fury. Made for the French doors in long, angry strides.

"I don't know how," he said softly.

She turned. "What?"

He closed his eyes, as if in admission of defeat. "I don't know how. I never knew, Narcissa. I never knew what this was like. And I don't know how to shut it down."

She let out a long, low sigh. Came back to the table and sat down beside him.

"You can't shut it down," she said gently. "It doesn't work like that. You decide to guard it. You decide it's too precious for anyone else to see. You decide you'd rather die than let _anyone_ see it."

Lucius frowned. "Is that why you and Severus are never intimate? Not even in the safety of our home? Fifteen years, he's shared your chambers, and I've never seen him so much as hold your hand."

"I suppose. And neither of us are very demonstrative people at the best of times. Of course we're...intimate...but not in passing. Not like you and Nymphadora. I admit I'm a little jealous of the two of you for that. But it's also served us in good stead."

Lucius was nodding. She thought he looked very haunted. As well he should, she thought; if the Dark Lord took one look in his mind, Nymphadora would be a dead woman.

He said presently, "I've never told her, you know. Not about Draco, or Severus." He quoted softly, "I will guard you and the things you hold dear."

Narcissa felt great warmth for him in that moment.

"And I, yours," she said.

They would both be held to their promises sooner than they would have hoped.

* * *

[18 JUNE 1996: TONKS]

She was surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

They were in bed, spent, settling into their now-familiar routine of post-coital espionage. Tonks would probe Lucius about his Death Eater buddies, Lucius would probe Tonks about the Order, and neither would come away with anything much at all. 

Dumbledore didn't seem to mind too much (although in absolute fairness, he _was_ having Delores Umbridge-sized problems of his own). He seemed happy with the status quo as long as she was able to regularly provide _something,_ and she overheard plenty at Lucius' parties. She was his constant companion at those, taking on a different character every few weeks, lest she be identified as someone of enduring importance to him and become a target. Lucius' idea, not hers, but it had served her ends as well, so she had embraced the idea with enthusiasm.

She'd turned up valuable intelligence at the social events. For instance, the Carrow twins were genuinely fond of each other, and they were treated as the uncouth poor cousins of the Pureblood world. That information might prove useful in the future - divide and conquer, as they say. She'd also learned of a tactically-significant location - a former Crouch vacation house - where some of the Azkaban escapees were thought to be hiding; the Order planned to destroy it, and hopefully capture the occupants into the bargain.

Lucius' mood had become strained in recent weeks, but she hadn't gotten much talk from him about what was troubling him. Like her, he had become quieter as their world grew darker, perhaps preferring silence to lies. He preferred to bask in the light with her, it seemed, and she didn't try too hard to change it because she needed that, too.

But it had to happen, she supposed, and finally, one summer afternoon, it did. His Dark Mark suddenly flashed jet-black against her, sending cold chills crawling over her flesh. He flinched, jerking his arm away from her with a hiss.

Her gaze flickered down to it, and up at his tense expression. 

"So," she said gravely, without rancour. "That's how it is, then?"

He only looked on her, his face drawn and pinched and pale. "Nymphadora -"

"Don't go," she whispered impulsively. "Run with me."

Lucius' face broke out in a smile, but it was a rather horrible one, sad and bitter and hurting. He took her face between his palms, and said, "I'm not like you, my dear. I don't fight for ideas." Gently, he pressed his forehead to hers. "Stay safe tonight, all right?"

She kissed him. Hard. "You too. Promise me."

He got up from the bed, Summoning his clothes, and he left without promising at all.

She rose, worrying at her lip with her teeth, and dressed. Wondered whether she should stay or go. She could Floo out, but she couldn't move freely in the house. Not without him there. The wards wouldn't let her.

While she was still thinking about it, a Patronus bounded in through the window, a lynx, lean and bright, jerking her from her worry and her reverie. It stopped before her, looking at her unblinking.

"I'm alone," she said. "Speak."

Kingsley's voice answered. "Department of Mysteries. Now."

She went.

* * *

[18 JUNE 1996: LUCIUS]

He'd always managed to keep his hands clean.

Lucius thought this as he held his hand out for the prophecy, waiting for the Potter boy to provide it. Until now, he'd never committed a crime himself, besides membership of a criminal organisation. He'd stood by as others had committed them - and some had been awful - but he'd stayed removed enough to sleep at night.

He was not, after all, a monster.

And yet here he was, ordering his soldiers, mostly mad, to keep their hands off Potter until the prophecy was safe in his hands, and to kill anyone else if they deemed it necessary. Nice little qualification, that, but most of those present would consider it necessary (or desirable, or just plain _fun_ ) to kill them just on general principles.

And they were children. Children no older than Draco.

That hardened his resolve. His job was to protect Draco, to ensure he would do whatever it was he was meant to do. These children were not his fight.

 _But the prophecy,_ the thought nagged at him, _what about the prophecy? Is the rest of it really about Potter at all? Could it be about Draco?_

Might this be the moment that his life would be forfeit? he wondered. Suddenly, fervently, he wished he had told Severus and Narcissa about the prophecy of Lady Anne. And hoped, as she had foretold, that he would know the moment, and do what must be done.

Just then, light filled the room, as half a dozen members of the Order Apparated into the room. His hand was still stretched out to Potter when his eyes found Nymphadora's, just a split-second ahead of her _Stupefy_.

It occurred to him, as he fell backwards to the ground, that she might have saved his life.

* * *

[18 JUNE 1996: TONKS]

As aunts went, Tonks decided she liked Narcissa far better than Bellatrix.

She thought this as Bellatrix lashed out at her. Her fighting style was a bit like poking an animal in a cage, spells thrown out in short, sharp thrusts of her wand.

"Nice job on Lucius," Bella taunted. "Not so good in the sack, then? No restraint for old time's sake?"

 _Don't let her use you against each other,_ Tonks counselled herself. She made a face. "Good God, no. Narcissa can have him." She returned the hexes in kind. "I don't take mercy on child-killers. He wasn't even that _good._ "

Bella laughed delightedly, clapping her hands as Tonks was hexed to the ground.

"That's what I like to see. A little spirit." Bella leaned forward and used her wand to tuck a bit of her hair back behind her ear; Tonks flinched away, looking up mutinously. "For that, pretty girl, I'll let you live. This time."

Tonks dragged in her breath and let it out, shaking, as Bellatrix skipped away. Knew she should get up, but the wind was still coming back into her lungs.

Quickly, she scanned the room. 

Sirius fighting Bella. Well, she thought, Sirius was a big boy, and she thought she'd used up her luck with Bella today. Neville Longbottom was dancing, poor boy - _Tarantallegra,_ she supposed - but didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Lucius, though - Lucius was pursuing Harry, slowed by an Impediment jinx. His arm was outstretched to meet Harry's, still holding the prophecy. And in the slow motion of the _Impedimentia_ , she saw Lucius tap Harry's hand, flicking the prophecy to Neville.

She blinked. The Impediment jinx made his motions slow and deliberate. Ergo, he had, unobserved by everyone, compromised the prophecy on purpose.

_What was he playing at?_

Neville was still dancing, and the prophecy, predictably, fell from his pocket and smashed to pieces.

Lucius nodded, his expression filled with a strange kind of satisfaction, and then he fled.

Tonks followed.

* * *

[18 JUNE 1996: LUCIUS]

Lucius burst through an unknown door and found himself in a chamber with a fountain in the centre. It smelled of white flowers and white hair and white damask.

"Lucius," Nymphadora said softly behind him, "where are we?"

Fleetingly, he wondered what it smelled like to her; whether, as for him, it smelled of that day on the table in the sun.

He turned to face her. Her wand was pointed at him; he knew it would be. "We're in the Love Chamber," he said. "How very fitting."

"It's supposed to be locked," she said. "Why were we allowed in?"

He thought - _thought_ \- it was because of the prophecy and what he had done. There were mysteries in this chamber besides romantic love. Self-sacrifice, for one thing. Something he thought he was going to find out far more about than he would like, once the Dark Lord got his hands on him.

"Damned if I know," he said. "Everything else went to hell, so why not that?"

Just then, Kingsley Shacklebolt burst in, wand drawn and all guns blazing, metaphorically speaking. "Tonks? Are you in here-" he broke off.

"Right here," Nymphadora said. Her eyes were locked on Lucius, and they were sad.

He knew the truth of it - truth be told, he'd known it all along. She would grieve for him, but she would still turn him over. He supposed he would do the same.

"It's best this way," he said softly. "Perhaps he'll think Azkaban punishment enough for my failure here. Perhaps he'll leave Narcissa and Draco alone." He held out his wand to her, silver handle pointed towards her, as you might hand over a pair of scissors or a Muggle pistol. "See that they get this?"

She took it. She did it gently. "I can do that, Lucius." 

"Lucius Malfoy," Kingsley's voice boomed, but Nymphadora held up her hand.

"Lucius Malfoy," she said, his name like a prayer on her lips despite everything. "You are charged with criminal trespass with intent, with attempted larceny and wilful destruction of a protected object, with aggravated reckless endangerment of one or more minors, and with conspiracy with a criminal organisation."

Kingsley added, "And of being an accessory to the murder of Sirius Black by way of criminal activity in company." Sirius' death was news to him, and apparently to Nymphadora too, because she drew in her breath at that; Lucius remembered that Sirius was her cousin. He was sorry, and not only for her; it made his own position far more precarious.

Nymphadora went on. "You have the right under Section 30 of the Criminal Proceedings Act to be tried by the Wizengamot. You also have the right under Section 31 to request the minimum penalty for the gravest charge, and in so doing avoid trial, death, and the Dementor's Kiss, a request which the Minister may accept or reject. You have the right to representation by a lawyer or learned advocate, who will explain any additional rights available to you. Lucius," she said, her voice dropping a little, "do you understand these rights?"

"I do. I would like to exercise my Section 31 rights."

She nodded. "Very well. Hold out your hands and submit to be Bound."

He did, and as the magical ropes traced around his wrists, over and over, the lines of pain in her face etched deeper and deeper.

He thought that his was not the only self-sacrifice that day, after all.

* * *

Nymphadora looked more worried than he did.

Lucius, for his part, had no concerns. He had lined the Minister's pockets very well for many years. The insurance he had been squirreling away was about to be repaid. Fudge would, of course, make a point of deliberating at length, as though weighing up Lucius' extravagant contributions to the community and to the Ministry, against his apparent consorting with the Dark Lord himself. But Lucius had covered even this possibility, confiding once to Fudge over late night drinks that he feared, should the Dark Lord ever return, that he might be coerced into re-joining his cause. It was important, he had learned in life, to spoon-feed rationalisations to those he might one day resort to for help. 

Eventually, the knock came. 

Percy Weasley entered without awaiting a reply. He said tersely to Lucius, "The Minister has approved your request. You will be imprisoned in Azkaban for no less than ten years, the minimum term for accessory to murder. The Minister wishes to advise that no further clemency will be provided to you by his office."

Lucius met the Weasley boy's gaze, and understood the message, though Percy, he believed, did not. Fudge knew Lucius would probably not spend his full ten years in prison; he knew a shift in power was coming. And if it was ever again in his power, Fudge would go to all possible lengths against him. As far as Fudge was concerned, all debts to Lucius had been repaid.

"Very well. I thank the Minister for his kindness and ask only that my family, who are blameless, be spared any retribution. Official or otherwise."

Percy's eyelids flickered. "I believe, Mr Malfoy, that unofficial retribution is a technique of _your_ associates, not the Minister's. However, I will be sure to pass the message on."

Lucius mentally cheered at that. Percy had always struck him as a little – well, weaselly. He hadn't thought the boy had it in him.

The room fell silent a moment after Percy departed. Nymphadora, standing and leaning against the wall, said awkwardly to Kingsley, "I would like to come with you to Azkaban."

"I would rather if you did not," Lucius said stiffly. "I'm sure an Auror such as yourself can handle it well enough, but nonetheless, I would prefer that no one attended that dreadful place unnecessarily on my account. I would appreciate it if you would convey that message to Narcissa and Draco, also."

She was very white, and her jaw clenched and tight, but she nodded. "As you wish."

Kingsley rose. He was darting his glance back and forth between them, clearly evaluating the odd little picture unfolding, and while Lucius had long believed Kingsley was part of the Order, he was not surprised to realise the other man was not aware of her mission. Kingsley was frowning, but he said only, "Well. Azkaban awaits."

Nymphadora nodded. Her expression pensive. She pushed herself off the wall and crossed the room, heading towards the door. 

She made it all the way to the door before she stopped there, touching it with her hand. He really thought she was going to leave it at that until she turned and strode back to him, taking his face between her palms and pressing her lips to his.

It wasn't a romantic gesture, he thought as his lips yielded under hers. It wasn't even a desperate one. It was something about pride. About taking something back, some dignity, for both of them.

Well, he supposed, Kingsley was going to figure it out any minute anyway.

"I'm not sorry," she said resolutely as she pulled away. "I can't send the world to hell. I _won't_. Not even for you."

He thought that was it, everything that was messed up between them, in that one statement. Everything she was and he was not and it didn't matter who was right and who was wrong; what mattered was that they didn't fit in the same time and space. They never had.

"I'm not like you," he said in a low voice. "I don't fight for ideas. I just fight for the things I love. I never lied to you about that."

"No," she said, holding his gaze, and he suddenly realised how rarely they did that. How often the half-truths had torn his or her gaze away. "No, you never did."

"If _he_ gets into power," he said urgently, "run. Go to ground. Don't look back, not for me, not for the Order, not for the greater _bloody_ good. Just run."

She gave a wry sound, tinged with bitterness. "You know me better than that."

He sighed. Kissed her forehead. "I suppose I do. Stay safe as long as you can. Will you do that much?"

She nodded, her eyes holding his as he pulled back to face her. "You too," she whispered.

"You should go," he murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Go on. Don't look back."

She kissed him, and then she turned away, and she didn't look back.

* * *

[19 JUNE 1996: TONKS]

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell Dumbledore."

Tonks was sitting patiently in Kingsley's office when he returned as the sun was rising in the sky, and he didn't even bother to sit before unleashing his fury. He leaned forward on his hands, staring at her over his desk, his normally placid brow wrinkled with anger.

"Who do you think sent me to seduce him in the first place?" she said calmly. She felt very tired and old.

That brought him up short. "Shit."

She just held his gaze solemnly. If she could picture what she felt right now, it would be something gray and shadowy in her very cells, clouding them, marking the deepest parts of her with something dull and beautiful and sad. It wasn't heartbreak or soulbreak or anything dramatic like that; it was just that somewhere along the line, he'd become written into her very bones, and now her bones were sore.

Kingsley sat down before her. "That wasn't an act back there, though." It was almost – not quite – a question.

"No, it wasn't." Tonks looked away. "The old codger's so busy moving people around like figures on a human chessboard that it never even occurred to him. Hell, it never occurred to me. I mean, he's Lucius Malfoy. Ugly blood purist, bureaucrat, eats elves for breakfast, all that. I thought it would just be a bit of a roll in the hay, and then maybe he'd be in a good mood and he'd tell me things and take me places to show me off, and I'd find things out. An extended one-night stand, you know?" 

Kingsley nodded. There was something grave and rather sad in his eyes, she thought.

She said awkwardly, "You don't realise, when you're outside someone's life, how they can be horrible in some ways and loving and warm and loyal in others. It doesn't make sense that those things can exist in the one person, but they can. They can."

Kingsley made a noncommittal sound. "Well, Lucius always did strike me as the sanest of the lot of them. Does Narcissa know?"

"She knows. He says they have an arrangement, but then, he would say that. She might just be too much of a dignified society wife to make a scene. I've never really been sure how much is by agreement and how much is...you know...living with it because she doesn't have a choice."

Kingsley was frowning. He got to his feet and began to pace.

"I've never betrayed our side, Kingsley," she said, staring up at him. "I met my obligations as an Auror. I arrested him. And I met my obligations to the Order. I never withheld information, though I suspect Lucius rationed what he told me, as I did him. The only thing I betrayed was myself, and him. If you think I was wrong, tell who you like. I won't try to stop you."

Kingsley stopped by the window. Looking out. He looked thoughtful. Said presently, "I don't like this, Tonks. I don't like what he had you do, and I don't like what it's cost you. We're supposed to be the good guys."

"It's war," she said simply. "I'm not the first woman who's done it and I won't be the last. As for the cost, I'm not the first woman to have her heart broken. It's life. I don't think I would change it even if I could."

"Maybe." He looked fundamentally unsatisfied.

They were interrupted by a knock. Kingsley turned. "Enter."

Narcissa Malfoy swept in regally. Her eyes were red, but her bearing was the epitome of composure. "Mr Shacklebolt, Miss Tonks."

"Madam Malfoy," she said, rising, bowing her head deeply. It was a submissive gesture she had acquired while navigating Narcissa's world. Lucius would not countenance deceiving her as they deceived his party guests, so against her better judgment, she had taken what amounted to the role of official mistress. Maîtresse-en-titre, the French called it; a recognised role with its own etiquette and customs.

Narcissa returned the nod, then turned her attention to Kingsley. "Mr Shacklebolt. I understand I am entitled to one conjugal visit with my husband under Schedule C of the Prison Dealings Act. I was advised to seek an authorisation letter from you."

Tonks suppressed a pang. She didn't really think Lucius and Narcissa were lovers, but who knew? Narcissa might consider one final shag her wifely duty. And Lucius - Lucius would need comfort. It was totally understandable and it hit her like a good old-fashioned punch in the guts.

Kingsley cocked an eyebrow, but nodded. Sat down at his desk and wrote in neat, sloping script on a little card. "The Ministry only maintains one suite for the purpose. There's a waiting list, and a ballot. It can take a year or more. The Prisoner Liaison office will explain how it works."

Narcissa took the card wordlessly, and turned her attention to Tonks. She unbent a little. "Nymphadora," she said more quietly. "I collected my husband's belongings from the Registrar this morning. I'm told there is one item that remains in your possession."

Tonks drew Lucius' wand. "I promised I would see it into your hands, no one else's." She held it out like an offering.

Narcissa took it. The lines of her jaw seemed to soften a little as her fingers closed around it. "Thank you. I understand you were – there – when it happened?" She nodded, and Narcissa looked away. "Well, I'm sure you were as kind to him as your position allowed."

Tonks closed her eyes briefly. Narcissa had meant to be kind, she thought, but somehow that seemed to make it worse. Needing to get it all over with, she said quickly, "I also promised to pass along a message. He asked that you not visit him in Azkaban. I realise that you will probably go there regardless, but I did say I would pass the message along."

Narcissa drew herself up on her heels. "I would not abandon Lucius in his time of trouble. He should know better than that. But I appreciate your...diligence...in abiding by his request."

Tonks nodded. "Of course."

Narcissa shot a look at Kingsley, but apparently decided to advance their exchange. "I should appreciate it, however, Nymphadora, if you did not visit."

It hit her like a slap in the face, but she swallowed down the sting and the salt and said tightly, "I wouldn't dream of embarrassing you so, Narcissa."

Narcissa seemed to realise then how she had sounded. Her tone became almost conciliatory. "It has nothing at all to do with embarrassment, Nymphadora. The days for such concerns are gone. When a coup d'état is staged, you see, it is not only the king who is seized. The queen, the prince, the maîtresse-en-titre are all toppled with him." Tonks stared at her in growing understanding. Narcissa's tone dropped, and she said gravely, "You understand, don't you? The danger is real. Few knew of it, and to those who did, you were just a short-lived diversion. It must remain so. For your safety, and his."

Tonks swallowed. Narcissa reached for her, seemingly impulsively, but Tonks felt her pressing Kingsley's authorisation into her hand.

She thought of Lucius' exhortation to her. Thought of the danger Narcissa now faced. And so she repeated his words.

"Be safe, Narcissa," she said. "Please."

A dry, bitter laugh escaped her counterpart. "Safe? There is no safe anymore. You know it as well as I. But let us both agree to survive if we can. That, at least, is a promise we can keep." Amazingly, she turned her cheek to Tonks, like a queen bestowing a favour on her lady-in-waiting.

It was farcical, and yet it was an act of grace. She could acknowledge the ridiculousness and acknowledge her good intent at the same time. Tonks leaned in and kissed that white, delicate cheek. In that moment of shared danger and shared grief, she felt as close to her aunt as she had ever felt to her own mother.

"I promise," she whispered.

Narcissa touched her cheek with one slender finger. "You're a good girl, Nymphadora." With that, she turned and swept from the room.

* * *

[22 DECEMBER 1996: TONKS]

"My Patronus has changed," Tonks said softly, gazing out at the cornfields, steam rolling up off her tea and dancing before drifting away.

Molly only made a mild sound and pulled her cardigan more tightly around her. It was a cold evening and she supposed she should suggest they go in, but Molly had seemed happy enough for them to sit outside in the dark.

"It's a _wolf_ ," she went on sourly. "A beast of prey. How very bloody fitting." Lucius' wolf-like smile rose up in her mind, mischievous and flirty and predatory all at the same time. "It could only have been more cliché if it had been a sodding snake."

Molly shot her a look; Tonks saw it out the corner of her eye. She remembered the discussion about wolves and Familiars, and how she and Narcissa saw ferociousness and loyalty in Lucius. Wanted to tell Molly about it, but didn't. 

Seemingly, Molly could reconcile her falling in _love_ with Lucius. The heart could, after all, be irrational sometimes. But she could not accept any expression of perceived _worth_ in him. It was just that final stretch too far, and Tonks understood that. Once upon a time she would not have accepted it herself. And Tonks needed someone, a mother figure - Andromeda could never have accepted _any_ of it - and so she made compromises sometimes, telling some but not all.

"What about Remus?" the older woman wondered at last, perhaps by association of ideas. "Is he still pressing you?"

Tonks nodded. "Afraid so. I mean, he wasn't in _love_ with me, thank Merlin. I told him there was someone before it got to that. But he's hell-bent on being a friend and convincing me to let go of whatever it is that's making me so miserable and all that. Poor bloke means well, but he just won't let the thing go."

Molly sighed into her mug. "Well, he has a point, dear. You aren't really ready to even try just yet. Are you?"

Automatically, Tonks felt for the authorisation card she kept on her person for when her number - Narcissa's number - was drawn. 

"There's probably some truth in that," she said softly. 

Molly said gently, "There's nothing to hang on for, dear. At the very best, he has over nine years of his sentence to serve, and he'll emerge as married as he went in. And at worst, the Dark Lord will free him sooner, and he'll be drawn even further in." _And serve him right,_ Molly probably thought; but she didn't say it, had never said it, and Tonks blessed her for it.

Tonks felt for the card again. Rubbed it gently with her fingertip. Somehow it soothed her.

 _One last time,_ she thought. _I'll let go after that. I will._

"I suppose you're right," she said mechanically. 

She got to her feet and took up the cups, but she could feel Molly's eyes on her as she took them indoors.

* * *

[30 JULY 1997: LUCIUS]

He was a shadow of his former self.

Lucius thought this inspecting his reflection in the ensuite off the bedchamber used for conjugal visits. 

The chamber was on Azkaban island, but a distance from the main prison. It was only offered monthly, and it was guarded by Ministry officials, not Dementors. The tradition of the conjugal visit originated with Pureblood society - it was originally an opportunity to try for an heir - and the Dementors were not conducive to conception. 

He may have been a shadow of his former self, but after an hour away from the Dementors, he was feeling better already. 

He looked better, too. Oh, his hair was unruly now - he couldn't seem to tame it - but it was cleaner than it had been in months. His hands were calloused now, but he'd gotten the worst of it off in the bath.

You could be forgiven for thinking that he'd just had a nasty illness, he thought. There was nothing in his reflection to hint how close to madness he'd really come.

Just then, the door of the elegant bedchamber swung open, and Narcissa swept in.

"Darling," he forced out as it closed behind her. Eyes pricking with salt and tears. 

He crossed the room in a couple of strides and clutched hard at her shoulders. She folded her arms around him and stroked his back, rubbing it in little circles.

He said grimly into her hair, "I was... _surprised_...that you exercised your right to a conjugal visit. But then, I imagine that wasn't what you had in mind." 

She nodded, but said nothing.

"If you came to guard your secret from my likely descent into madness, you needn't worry. The strongholds around you and Draco will be the last part of me to go. You can't Obliviate me in here, anyway. Magic in here is blocked."

A familiar voice whispered into his ear, "Not all magic, Lucius. Not all."

He jerked away, as if burned. Felt heat and chills rush over him. Felt every part of him come undone as Narcissa morphed into Nymphadora before his eyes. He was breathing hard, shivering, and he would have clasped her to him if she hadn't done it first.

" _Lucius_ ," she whispered as they clung to each other. 

" _How?_ " he demanded at last, releasing her. "And why didn't you tell me it was you?" He was ticking over what he'd said... _your secret_...Merlin. Had he mentioned Draco?

"Narcissa has taken the role of gracious wife in times of adversity."

"Ah, yes. How very well-bred of her," he said, half blessing her, half cursing her. Had she not foreseen the risk of having Nymphadora impersonate her?

But then, perhaps even Narcissa could not imagine how utterly unguarded he was right now.

"But then...you said _darling_...I thought you wanted to see her," she said awkwardly. "I didn't know what to do." There was no artifice in her voice. 

For once, out of bed at least, Lucius believed her completely. It occurred to him that she probably didn't believe much of his story about their marriage, if she believed any of it at all. She probably thought Narcissa long-suffering, rather than a willing and equal player in their arrangement.

It made him want to show her she was wrong. That it was her, only her. Whatever the crazy folly of it. Whatever they did or would do to each other outside this room.

"Do you want to tell me how it's been?" she said hesitantly. She was stroking him down the front of his Ministry-issue robe. Like she couldn't stop touching him.

"No," he said curtly. She nodded, jerking her head like she was afraid to say anything else, and he softened. "There have been enough lies between us to last a lifetime. I won't lie to you here."

She nodded again. Biting her lip, worrying it with her teeth. "Then let's say nothing."

Seeing her like that suddenly brought it all home, and to his horror, he felt tears (tears!) welling up in his eyes. Mortified, he said clumsily, "Can you - would you just sit with me? Will you do that?"

She looked up again, her gaze meeting his, and she nodded. Awkward.

Then suddenly her eyes were full too, and she bridged the space between them and kissed him urgently. Sweeping him up in her need and her pain and mingling it with his own. 

" _Repello_ ," she said brokenly against his lips, the charm uttered as a sob (he supposed she didn't take potions anymore), and some reckless, furious part of him protested. He didn't want her closed to him. He wanted to _live_ in her, to take root in her. He didn't want her pregnant - good God, not like this! - but he wanted to be carried along with her, and that was something he could never do.

He stumbled backwards until he found the bed. Then he stumbled forwards until he found her warmth. Then they stumbled together into darkness, leaving it all behind.

For a while.

 

COMING IN ACT THREE: THE FOUR WILL RISE OR FALL TOGETHER


	3. Act Three: The Sons of July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Act 3: The Sons Of July.** Severus hears a new prophecy, and learns that Harry, Neville and Draco are not the only Sons of July. In the final battle, Nymphadora and Lucius are reunited, for good or for ill, and she holds the key to the final piece of the prophecy. The power to save their world is in their grasp - but none of them have the full picture, and sacrifices will be needed along the way.

[](http://fiction.deslea.com/sonsjulycover600x789_lq.jpg)  
Now with gorgeous cover art by [ellygator](http://ellygator.deviantart.com).

 **ACT THREE**  
The Sons Of July

 _Sons of July, at last they meet!_  
 _Of light, of dark, great danger they greet!_  
\-- Sybill Trelawney, 30 July 1997

 

[30 JULY 1997: SEVERUS]

He would think later that it was meant to be. That he, like all of them, moved in concert with the forces that rise out of the very earth against darkness.

How else did one explain him being alone with Sybill Trelawney?

Oh, there was signs of a prophecy coming, he supposed later. There were documented indicators. Headaches. Vagueness. Malaise. Had some quiet part of him seen the signs, and prompted him to stay close to her? 

Whatever the reason, he was there and she was there, alone in the staffroom, reading in silence. Sybill had bustled in a few minutes ago, muttering about something about Potter and the Room of Requirement, but since then, she had been quiet. Sybill rarely spoke to him, and he was grateful for it. She was one of the few women, in his experience, who did not feel it necessary to fill every moment with speech.

Abruptly, Sybill stood up. Her book fell to the floor with a thud, as though she had forgotten it was there. It was a heavy tome, some horrid thing by her own ancestor Cassandra Trelawney, and the sound jolted him to his feet.

"Sybill," he said, "what-"

And then he stopped. He knew it now, the glazed expression, the vacant eyes. Sybill was Elsewhere. And then she was back, and she was awake. Not just seeing, he thought, but seeing _him._ Had she, too, been prompted to stay close?

"Do you have something to - to tell me, Sybill?" he said cautiously.

"Severus Snape," she said, in a curious voice that reminded him oddly of Luna Lovegood. "Almost always, the message is for you. Why is that, do you think?"

"I dare say I'm the only one quiet enough to listen," he said dryly. "And you're not normally...chatty."

Sybill's mouth spread into an unconcerned smile. "It is, I fancy, the last time we will meet. I thought it fitting."

"I'm soon to die, then," he said. It wasn't a question, nor a surprise either. Had he not been tempting fate his whole adult life?

"That's not for you to know, Severus, nor me either. Have you not learned the folly of trying to change the future?"

 _In spades,_ he thought, but said only, "Why tell me the future, Sybill, if I'm not to try to change it?"

"You still don't understand, then. It isn't for you to change the future. It is for you to recognise the moment when it comes."

Severus frowned. "What moment?"

Her voice rose then, and became that of a little girl, singing in rhyme.

_A couple pure, brave and best_  
 _Separate from all the rest_  
 _Light so bright, conviction deep_  
 _Spent their life in waking sleep_  
 _Leaving a Son of July_

_A man of light and features dark_  
 _And Lady Black, his counterpart_  
 _Form a bloc with her spouse ___  
 _Alliance within the Dark Lord's house_  
 _To hide a Son of July_

___Misguided plan of light man dark_  
 _His once-held love becomes its mark_  
 _Her sacrifice begins the fall_  
 _Of the One who started it all_  
 _By way of the Sons of July_

___A folly'd love begun with lies_  
 _Finds its truth in sacrifice_  
 _Her only kill, in being kind_  
 _Will the bloc to herself bind_  
 _To save the Sons of July_

___Sons of July, at last they meet!_  
 _Of light, of dark, great danger they greet!_  
 _One pure light, brave and strong_  
 _One light but marked, spell gone wrong_  
 _One cloaked in dark in the Dark Lord's nest_  
 _One sown beneath his mother's breast_  
 _These four will rise or fall together!_  
 _Behold the Sons of July!_

__Severus stared at her. Thunderstruck.

" _Four_?" he shouted, grasping her by the shoulders. "There are _four_?"

This seemed to rouse Sybill from her trance. Her eyes were alive with horror. She was neither quite the Seer, nor quite herself either. "Severus," she said, eyes widening, "I see it. I see it _all_. Oh, Merlin, I see it _all!_ "

"All?" he demanded. "What does that mean?"

"Everything that _will_ be, everything that _might_ be, everything that _could_ be if I said _just_ the right things to _just_ the right people - Circe! The arrogance of it all! No wonder-"

"No wonder _what?_ What do you _see?_ " _Draco,_ his mind jangled, _what about Draco?_

She gave a little gasp. Said abruptly, "Severus, did you know that Seers, if not killed by others, usually kill themselves?"

This derailed him. "What? What are you talking about, woman?"

"It isn't right for a human being to have such power."

"I don't understand -"

"No," she said gently. "But you will."

"Sybill-"

She said, more normally but still strangely urgent, "Time is like the stars, Severus. There is a natural order. Constellations that are meant to be. But even a star can be knocked off course, if a force is big enough. The Dark Lord is one such force. In your own way, you have been one too. It could have ended before, perhaps, if you'd left it alone. The forces that protect your family are strong. If he had come after your Draco back then..."

He stared at her. "Merlin. You really _do_ know." He let go of her arms.

She touched his face with gentle fingertips. Her voice was grave. "Know the moment when it comes, Severus. That's your part in it, nothing more."

With that, she passed out of the room.

It only took five seconds for him to put it together. Ten at most. But he was too late.

By the time he clattered up the stairs to Astronomy Tower, she was sailing serenely off the top, her skirts around her, a cushion of lace and gauze.

She landed with an echoing _thud_ , but he didn't look down. He looked up.

At the stars.

 

[30 JULY 1997: TONKS]

Her body was aching.

Part of it was the good ache of lovemaking, of abandon, of release. A bigger part was the agony of separation and the tears that had followed. And then she'd had to come to the school and patrol like nothing had happened, like her world hadn't fallen apart.

Again.

At least she wasn't partnered with Remus, she thought, taking a mouthful of Firewhisky from the flask at her hip and shuddering as it went down. His werewolf senses were bloody uncanny sometimes. He knew when she was sick, he knew when she was on the rag, and she wouldn't put it past him to know when she'd had sex, either. And then he'd want to know if it was the unknown man, and _really, Tonks, this isn't good for you, anyone can see it, you have to let go_. She rather liked him as a person, but she felt too wrung out to cope with him today. His kindness was something she felt like stinging lashes salted with fire.

But then, she didn't think there was much kindness in the world at all for her. Not today.

Familiar, striding footsteps behind her. She moved casually into shadows. "Hello, Severus," she murmured in a noncommittal voice that did not encourage discussion.

Severus didn't return the greeting. Instead, he said abruptly, "Sybill's dead."

Tonks gasped, jolted from her own troubles for the moment. " _What?_ How?"

He said briefly, "Suicide. Fortunately, it was dinner. No witnesses. Dumbledore is missing in action, but we have to move the body to the infirmary. If the Dark Lord hears of it, he may think there was another prophecy to prompt it. The school is a target already, but I don't want him to target the students."

"Of course. Why did she do it, do you think?" she wondered.

Was there the faintest hesitation in Severus' voice before he answered?

"I think a Seer's life is a very stressful and frightening one. She told me once that they often take their own lives."

Nodding, she followed him down the stone walkway towards the ground beneath Astronomy Tower, and swallowed hard when she spotted the woman's body at the foot. From here, she could be just a pile of clothes.

By unspoken agreement, Severus moved closer. " _Mobicorpus,_ " he said (rather kindly, she thought). Sybill's body rose gently to waist height. He cast a Disillusioning charm over her and himself, and they disappeared from sight.

"I'll go ahead, make sure we're not running into traffic," Tonks said.

Severus cleared his throat, removing his charm again. "Nymphadora."

She turned to look at him. "What?"

The moon cast a thin light over his face. "I know Narcissa Malfoy very well," he said tightly. "I know where you've been today, and I wasn't happy about it. It was too risky, for both of you." Her mouth dropped open, forming a little O. "And even if I didn't, I'm a housemaster to fifty teenagers. I know what sex smells like, and liquor too. Regrettably, I need your assistance right now, but afterwards, you need to go and get yourself together."

Tonks stepped back involuntarily. Like he'd slapped her in the face. "You _bastard_."

"If you say so," he said mirthlessly. "But do you know where our fearless leader is right now, instead of presiding over Sybill's body? Heading off in search of another Horcrux with Potter, if I'm not mistaken." He went on cryptically, "When the time comes, you're probably the only one of us who can sway the boy. Because you know first-hand what it is to be one of _his_ pawns." He said more kindly, "We need you, Nymphadora. And the time is close. Tell me you can still do it."

She snapped, "Of course I bloody well can. I'm miserable, not inept."

At this, Severus's mouth settled into a thin smile. "Good."

He resumed his Disillusioning charm, and they went on together.

* * *

They parted ways at the infirmary. 

After Severus returned to his rooms, Tonks went and showered in the infirmary bathroom, cursing him for making her feel like a schoolgirl again. She fibbed that she had come straight to Hogwarts from an Auror's pursuit, but Poppy was too upset to pay much attention anyway.

She stayed a little while after that, to comfort the older woman. Wondered briefly why this loyal and devoted woman was not part of the Order. Merlin knew, they could use a resident Healer. She stayed long enough to help her lay out the oils and flowers in preparation to tend to Sybill's body, soothing smells and gentleness, and somehow she felt it heal a little part of her, too.

"Wotcher," she said in a reasonable imitation of good humour as she emerged from the infirmary a quarter hour later. Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Luna were hurrying past, towards Severus' rooms. A chorus of half-hearted _hellos_ passed her like a freight train. Shaking her head in wry amusement, she went back to her patrol. 

She had washed away Lucius from her body, she reflected as she paced in the comforting dark, though not from her heart. But she was still a strong woman, strong enough to do what must be done, and while his loss tore at her, it would not break her. Not now. Not ever.

She would see it through to the end.

 

[30 JULY 1997: SEVERUS]

_Draco. My Draco._

He thought this as he mounted the stairs of Astronomy Tower. This would be the second time he would see death here this day, and he was exhausted by death, exhausted by its chill and its smell and the way it seeped into his bones.

His heart broke a little at the sight of his son, trembling in the moonlight as he held Dumbledore at wandpoint, faced with the Dark Lord's cruel, impossible mission. It had been breaking all year, really, as Draco shrank from him, mistrusted him, folding over on himself and trusting only his mother. It was completely understandable and right that Draco should do so, but it had hit him in the pit of his stomach, every time.

He remembered Draco on a bathroom floor not so long ago, butchered with his own misfired spell. He had wept slow, leaking tears that day, watched them meld with the water and the steam around them as he healed the boy. Singing to him as he had sung to him as an infant, watching blood of his blood seep away. 

The Dark Lord would do this, or worse, if Draco failed. 

Bellatrix glared at the boy. They were waiting, all of them, and _oh, Draco, I could have helped you._

His heart was breaking, not for his rather poisonous friend, but for his son. 

"No," he said, emerging from the shadows. Came past Draco and trained his wand on Dumbledore.

"Severus," Dumbledore said quietly. "Please."

 _For my son,_ he thought. Made no effort to conceal his thoughts from the old man before him; he would acknowledge Draco at last to one of the few people who mattered. The slightest flicker of recognition came into his eyes as Severus said:

" _Avada Kedavra._ " 

They clattered their way back down the stairs, Draco's shuddering breaths echoing in his ears.

 

[31 JULY 1997: TONKS]

" _Him!_ "

Harry's voice was raw with horror and outrage. As well he might, Tonks thought; the man he believed to be their betrayer was sitting there right along with the rest of the Order at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

" _Petrificus Totalis,_ " Molly said quickly, freezing him to the spot. Remus, behind him, quickly caught him and lowered him into a chair before he could fall and crack his head. She hastened to add in her most motherly tone, "I'm so sorry, dear, but we can't have you doing anything rash. You see, none of this is what it seems. Not even what happened to Professor Dumbledore." She turned her eyes on the others who had been brought to the house with them; Hermione, Ron, and Neville. "Now, will you sit and listen, or do we need to bind you, too?"

The three looked mistrustful, but against the combined force that was Remus, Tonks, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye, and Kingsley, they exchanged glances, and nodded. They took up seats at the long kitchen table, flanking Harry protectively.

Remus spoke first. "To clear up a few things, yes, Harry did see Severus kill Dumbledore. That fact is not in dispute." Severus' face was paler than ever, if possible, but impassive. The children's eyes grew wide. He hastened on, "What he didn't know - what none of you knew - was that Dumbledore was dying. It was agreed between them that should the situation require it, Severus would kill Dumbledore rather than forfeit his position within the Dark Lord's ranks. Dumbledore confided this plan to all of us last year. In acting when he did, Severus saved Dumbledore from a far worse death, and saved the life of Draco Malfoy in the process."

Kingsley spoke. "Harry, every adult here can vouch for the story Remus has just told. I understand that what happened in the Tower was extremely traumatic, but we need you to believe and trust us now. Can you do that?"

Severus spoke for the first time. His tone was gentler than Tonks had ever heard it before. "I would be willing to provide a Pensieve memory of my discussion with Albus, if it helps, Mr Potter."

Harry's eyes were wide and strained, like he wanted to speak. Molly shot a glance at Severus, and said, " _Finite Incantatem._ " 

Harry said in a low, even voice, "You handed on the prophecy in the first place. You let us all in for this. How can I trust a word you say?" Tonks bit back a sound of surprise; she was not aware of this part of the story.

Severus grimaced. "It was a mistake, Potter, nothing more. Both your parents and the Longbottoms concealed their pregnancies. As far as I knew, the prophecy was just an intriguing bit of gossip spoken by a lunatic. I passed on what I heard to the Dark Lord out of an adolescent desire for approval, but I had no idea it would lead to anyone at all. I was horrified when I learned that it had. I defected to the Order the same day."

Harry insisted, "Dumbledore pleaded for his life."

Severus said calmly, "Dumbledore pleaded for me to keep my promise."

"Enough," Hermione said fiercely. "Let's hear him out. Why tell us now, Professor Snape? Why, after keeping everything to yourself and letting us suspect you all these years?"

Severus countered, "Because the Dark Lord had access to Potter's mind, through the scar he sustained during their first encounter when he was an infant. We could not risk the Dark Lord learning of my allegiances through him."

Ron said suspiciously, "And what's changed?"

Severus exchanged glances with Tonks and Kingsley, and Kingsley stepped forward. He said:

"What's changed is, the four of you are staying at Number Twelve until the end of the war."

* * *

The room was in uproar.

"We're ruddy well _not!_ " Ron was saying in outrage.

"I have _parents!_ " Hermione said in fury. " _Muggle_ parents! How will you explain me just not coming home?"

Harry had drawn his wand. "I don't know how you've convinced them all to keep me prisoner, Snape, but I'll get out of here if it's the last thing I do!"

Tonks stepped forward and banged the table, hard, over and over again. "Oi! Shut it, the lot of you!"

They did. Harry's wand was poised mid-air, and Molly deftly lifted it from his fingers.

Tonks' hand hurt. 

"What do you have to say about it, Neville?" she said kindly. The Longbottom boy was still sitting, quite unruffled by the whole outburst.

Neville said reasonably, "I'm not one of the Golden Trio, but I am an alternative candidate for the prophecy. Which makes me think there might be another reason for keeping us here, besides keeping Harry out of trouble."

Severus snorted.

Tonks glared at him, and said to Neville, "Severus heard another prophecy from Sybill before she died. She didn't say much, I understand, but she did indicate that you, too, would play an important part in the Dark Lord's downfall." 

"Indeed," Severus echoed, and she glanced at him, keeping her expression free of guile. She wondered, not for the first time, whether Severus had really told all he knew about that night. 

She went on, "Mind you, keeping Harry out of trouble is certainly a big part of it as well." She turned her attention to Harry, and said gently, "We're aware of the Horcruxes."

Harry stared up at her. Dropped down into the chair in front of her. He suddenly looked very young.

"Horcruxes?" Neville queried. He was alone in his confusion; clearly, Ron and Hermione already knew about them.

"Portions of the Dark Lord's soul, implanted into objects to tether him to the world and protect him from death," Kingsley explained. "Only when they are all destroyed can he be finally killed." 

"Severus was the one who told us about them," Tonks said. "If he were on the Dark Lord's side, he would not have done that."

Harry flared, "That was supposed to be a secret. If Snape was really Dumbledore's man, he wouldn't have broken his confidence."

"I'm not Dumbledore's," Severus said gravely. "I'm the Order's. There's a difference."

"The Order was Dumbledore's army!" Ron protested.

Kingsley spoke. "The Order exists to bring down the Dark Lord and to serve the light. Dumbledore made mistakes that caused a lot of unnecessary harm. We didn't turn against him, but we were concerned enough that we began to serve the light in our own ways as well as his." Tonks felt sudden warmth; each of them had their own tipping point, and she knew that for Kingsley, it was learning what Dumbledore had done to her. It was Kingsley, in fact, who had first voiced what many of them had been thinking.

"If you need an example, consider the task of destroying the Horcruxes. It's unconscionable that Dumbledore gave such a task to a fifteen year old to do alone," Arthur said, taking up the thread.

"Sixteen today," Harry said mechanically. Had a certain, slumping relief come into his shoulders?

"So," Tonks said, "we've been killing them."

At this, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all stared up at her.

"It's true," Kingsley said. "We got Rowena Ravenclaw's tiara, Helga Hufflepuff's goblet, and Salazar Slytherin's locket. The ring and the diary were already gone. So that's five. We believe the sixth is Nagini, the Dark Lord's snake. That will be, we think, the hardest to get."

"And the seventh?" Hermione wondered. Her eyes were grave, and Tonks thought she already knew.

"The seventh," Tonks said, "we believe, is Harry - or rather, his scar." She went on more softly, "We believe Dumbledore intended you to perceive and make peace with your coming death while destroying the others."

Harry's chin was trembling. He was very white.

"It needn't come to that," Remus said. "Your age is in your favour. Certain protections, Harry, will not leave you until you come of age next year." He came around the table and sat next to the boy. "If we're a mutiny, Harry, we're a mutiny dedicated to keeping you alive. To taking some of the burdens from your shoulders."

Tonks sat, too. She said gently, "Harry, Dumbledore meant well, and he did great things. But he also did wrong things. He groomed you to die when he should have let us help you. He was a great strategist, but he also believed in sacrifice for the greater good."

"And you don't?" Harry demanded hollowly.

"Necessary sacrifice is a noble thing," she said, "but unnecessary suffering is stupid. And Dumbledore, in his manoeuvring, has put more than one of us though an unnecessary share of suffering."

"And what was yours?" Hermione demanded. Well, Sirius had called her the smartest witch of her age; Tonks was rather inclined to agree.

She decided it couldn't hurt. And it might help.

"A man," she said evenly. "I was sent to betray him. I fell in love with him. And I betrayed him anyway."

Harry demanded, " _Dumbledore_ had you do that? Had you - seduce some Death Eater?" He was appalled.

"And why should that surprise you, Harry?" Remus said gently. "Severus has scars all over his body from his years of infiltration. He's suffered the _Crucio_ more times than you can count. And it isn't just Severus. Why, when you were twelve years old, Dumbledore had you clambering down Devil's Snare and playing Wizard Chess to protect the Philosopher's Stone, when he could have just agreed with Nicolas Flamel to destroy it as soon as it was threatened!"

Tonks said kindly, "We know you cared for him. We all did. But what he did, leaving it all up to you, was wrong. A situation we mean to remedy."

Harry was shivering, and the others had gathered closer to him, as though prompted by protective instinct. He seemed completely, utterly torn, and Tonks understood that. Torn between the destiny he'd been assured was his, his good opinion of Dumbledore, and his instinctive understanding of Dumbledore's manipulative nature. Relief that he might not have to go it alone.

He closed his eyes for a long moment. Swallowed hard. Regained control of himself.

Finally, he said steadily, "All right. What's the plan?"

 

[AUGUST 1997: LUCIUS]

"Darling," Narcissa said warmly. "It's good to have you home."

She rose, and approached him regally, as though she were still the Lady of the Manor and not effectively a feudal ward of it. As though Nagini were not slithering casually around her feet as though it owned the bloody place. She placed an affectionate kiss on his cheek as though he were not filthy with Azkaban's grime and dirt, as though he were not exhausted and very nearly broken. She was beautiful and strong and proud, and in that moment, were it not for Nymphadora, he thought he could have loved her. Completely.

He whispered, "Thank you, Narcissa." He didn't only mean for her welcome. Nymphadora's visit to Azkaban, only days before, was still fresh in his mind. It had hurt him, in some ways, disrupted his equilibrium by reminding him of what he'd lost, but it had been a talisman against the darkness, as well.

"My Lord," Narcissa said over his shoulder, and it gave him chills. He didn't think she'd ever addressed the Dark Lord directly in his presence before. It was one more reminder of how far they had fallen, how little protection they had left. "I'm sure you have business, but can you spare my husband for an hour to clean up and spend a little time with us? I would be most grateful." She smiled prettily at him, her eyes wide and her jaw dipped, just a little, in supplication. 

Lucius was both appalled and impressed. Was this how she had survived the invasion of their home by murderers and psychopaths?

Voldemort gave a disinterested wave of his hand. "Yes, yes. We won't see Travers and Yaxley for a little while anyway."

Lucius said hurriedly, "Thank you, my Lord." The weakness in his voice was both real and exaggerated for effect; Voldemort had left him there for over a year to suffer. He would not like it if Lucius appeared not to have suffered enough.

They passed out of the dining room, arm in arm, up into his chambers. For once, Narcissa accompanied him.

Once they passed through Lucius' wards, Narcissa let go of his arm and tugged him against her instead. "Lucius," she said, holding him tightly, and he held on, too. 

Pulling back, he could see tears in her eyes. He was rather touched.

"Go and clean up," she said kindly. "I'll get Draco." She began to detach herself from his arms.

He grabbed onto her hand. "Narcissa. Bellatrix told me about Draco. The way he was threatened. What they tried to make him do."

Narcissa flashed him a grim smile. "Just couldn't wait to rub it in your face, could she?"

"I'm so sorry, Narcissa. If I hadn't failed-"

She shushed him. "You couldn't kill children, Lucius. It isn't in you. There were only two ways you were getting out of the Department of Mysteries – dead or captured. I'm glad it was captured."

He swallowed hard. She'd always had faith in him - more than he'd had himself. "So what happened?"

"Severus did it for him. I dragged Bellatrix out to Spinner's End and had her hold him to an Unbreakable Vow to protect Draco. I had to convince her it was her idea, but that wasn't difficult. This way, it looks like he did it to save his own life, not to protect Draco."

Lucius nodded. "Good thinking."

A wan smile passed over her face. "It was, wasn't it?" Her smile faded, and she whispered, "He took the Mark, Lucius."

It hit him like a punch in the stomach. Not Draco. He was so damned _young._ To his mortification, he felt tears spring into his eyes. " _No_."

Tears spilled over her lovely cheeks.

"Dad?" Draco said from the doorway. His voice was tentative.

Narcissa dragged back her tears and blew her nose into her handkerchief indelicately. Lucius crossed the room to the boy and wrapped his arms around his thin shoulders. Draco clung on for dear life.

"Severus stopped me from completing my mission," he said bitterly. "He took all the credit for himself. If he hadn't, maybe we'd all be forgiven by now." Lucius winced; caught Narcissa's eye across the room, and her chin was trembling.

Lucius shook his head, pulling away from him. "Severus did what we wanted him to do. He protected you." He took the boy's forearm in his hand. Stared down at the fresh, black brand there. "Oh, _Draco._ "

Draco was trembling. "I thought you'd be proud."

Lucius looked on him, this boy he had loved and raised. This boy for whom he would one day forfeit his own life. "I'm always proud of you, Draco. But I never wanted this for you. Any of it." He smiled wanly down on the offending Mark. "You're too good for this. One day, it will end, and you'll be there to see it."

There was something hopeless about the way Draco cast down his gaze at that. It troubled him. "How can you be so sure?" he mumbled.

Lucius tugged him close once more.

"Because there are things you are meant to do. And I mean to make sure you live to do them." Draco held him back, shivering as Narcissa joined them, cradling them both.

They stood there, reunited, huddled and clinging to one another in the light of the setting sun.

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: TONKS]

The Manor was in uproar.

Killing the snake was the easy part, surprisingly so. The problem with a living creature, one that Voldemort had never considered, was its need to sleep. And in the cool early autumn of September in Wiltshire, Nagini had begun to enter periods of hibernation, first short ones, then progressively longer. All it had taken was waiting the summer out.

It would have been safer to wait until winter proper, but none of them would consider that. The children were going stir-crazy at Grimmauld Place. Worse, the blood protection over Harry, legacy of his mother's self-sacrifice, was running out. He had made one, guarded visit to his loveless home in Little Whinging to maintain it (Tonks, who had met Lily as a child, was as appalled by her sister Petunia as she was impressed by her fastidious housekeeping), but the clock was ticking down by the day.

So they had risked an attempt on the snake, and killed it without incident. But Voldemort had felt the damned thing die, and summoned his army. And now they were engaged in all-out war.

They'd brought the children, against her better judgment. _Just in case,_ Severus had said. _Just in case the moment presents itself._ She had no idea how he thought that might happen, but she had gone along with it. They all had.

So far, Tonks had managed to avoid most of the skirmishes. She had the four of them with her, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, Disillusioned, and the others in the Order guarded them. It appeared, to their Dark counterparts, that the Order was simply engaged in a little bit of chivalry on her account, even at this late date.

They were in the front parlour, the five of them, covered by Kingsley and Remus, when Alecto, Amycus, and Travers strode in - with Lucius.

Lucius turned on her, wand outstretched. "I've got business with this one. Bitch put me in Azkaban. You go ahead."

Travers rolled his eyes. "Just don't take too long. His Scaly Nibs out there won't like it." He and the Carrows were already passing out the other door.

Lucius whirled his wand to pass over both doors and lock them - just enough to buy them seconds - and, lowering his wand, crossed the rest of the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

Kingsley had already lowered his wand, but Remus had jolted to attention as Lucius advanced on her. Now, his eyes grew wide as he peered at them over the bridge of his nose. Appalled, he queried, " _Him?_ "

"Shut up, Remus," Tonks said over Lucius' shoulder.

"Have you seen Draco?" Lucius said urgently into her hair.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry." 

He pulled away from her. "We got separated - I have to -"

"I know."

He grasped his signet ring with his hand and pulled it from his finger. He'd worn it since he was seventeen, she knew; he had to yank it brutally, so hard that she flinched. He pressed it into her hand. "With this, my wards will recognise you. Use it to get out if you need to."

Her fingers closed around his, and she nodded. _Please don't let this be goodbye,_ she thought. _Please don't let this be the last time I see him._

"I love you," she whispered. Something rarely said between them. They lied so often that to say it was to call it into doubt.

"Same." He planted a hasty kiss on her mouth, and then he left them.

* * *

The dining room was a bloodbath.

Just for a moment, Tonks allowed herself to remember this room when it was bright and clean and drenched with sun. When he had swept everything aside and made love to her on white silk and damask.

Now, there was blood spatter on the walls, old and new. The furniture was gone. _All the better to slaughter you with, my dear._ It was sad and dark, chipped glasses on the mantle. Narcissa's beautiful drapes were in tatters.

The Malfoys' way of life was not beautiful to everyone, she knew, but it was beautiful to them, and she mourned for it on their behalf.

Lucius had been drawn into fighting alongside his precious bloody overlord, but he did so without conviction. His spells formed a predictable pattern, and none inflicted serious injury (although he did manage to take a chunk out of Remus' shoulder; she would have to have words with him for that).

This Lucius was reduced. Not a ruin of a man, even now, but he looked like one to the untrained eye. He appeared, not subversive, but simply inept. However, if the Order won, he could plausibly - and probably truthfully - claim to be there under duress.

 _Good old Lucius_ , she thought warmly, _still hedging his bets_ _even now_.

Tonks, for her part, fought on the fringes, the teenagers still Disillusioned behind her. Her part was to stay safe and keep them safe; on standby only for if the perfect moment arose.

The moment that Draco entered the fray was the moment she _knew._ Lucius lowered his wand for a split second and reached for the boy, but Voldemort got there first, pulling him none-too-gently to his other side. Father and son would be held against each other til the end, til one or both were killed - by the Order, or by their own.

Voldemort nodded towards her. He hissed, "Draco. Your filthy blood traitor aunt. Finish her."

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: SEVERUS]

Draco stood there, his wand perfectly poised, trained on Tonks and - unknown to him - Neville and Harry. Three Sons of July, in perfect concert, for the very first time.

Severus watched the scene unfold before him. Clawing anxiously over the prophecy. Wracking his brain for understanding.

_Where was the fourth?_

The whole room seemed to have frozen, or at least fallen into slow motion. Draco was sweating. Lucius was ghastly, pasty-white in horror.

 _Sons of July, at last they meet!_  
 _Of light, of dark, great danger they greet!_  
 _One pure light, brave and strong_ \- that was Longbottom  
 _One light but marked, spell gone wrong_ \- Potter, no ambiguity there  
 _One cloaked in dark in the Dark Lord's nest_ \- Draco, his Draco  
 _One sown beneath his mother's breast -_

 _THINK_ , damn it! Who is it? _Who?_

One sown beneath his mother's breast. What did that mean? A toddler in arms? An unweaned infant?

Only there was no one like that in the Manor. Severus knew this house, and he was sure of it. He and Lucius and Narcissa had warded it together. There was only the Dark Lord and some of his army, the Order, and Potter and a handful of his friends.

He ticked over the one unsolved stanza of the poem. The others related to the parents of the Sons; it stood to reason that this one did, too.

_A folly'd love begun with lies_  
 _Finds its truth in sacrifice_  
 _Her only kill, in being kind_  
 _Will the bloc to herself bind_  
 _To save the Sons of July_

The bloc. That was him and Lucius and Narcissa. The woman - the mother - would bind herself to them. But what woman-

Oh. _Oh!_

Patrol the night of Astronomy Tower. Nymphadora, reeking of misery and alcohol and sex. The conjugal visit, over which he and Narcissa had rowed - _needless risk,_ he'd said - and oh! The chamber itself, heavy with shadows, centuries of fertility ritual and desperate, urgent lovers. 

And it had been Harry's birthday. And Neville's. And Draco's.

The thought flooded into him, flooded _through_ him, so fast and loud that he couldn't stop it.

_Nymphadora's pregnant._

Voldemort looked up, looked unerringly at Severus, as though he'd said it right out loud.

_Know the moment when it comes, Severus. That's your part in it, nothing more._

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: TONKS]

Voldemort was laughing.

It was a sudden sound, dreadful with dark hilarity. He pressed Draco's wand down and aimed his own. Let it drift to point straight at her belly. Tonks stared at him in confusion.

"This is too, too delicious. You're with child, Auror," he said with unmistakable satisfaction. 

Tonks felt her mouth drop open into a little _O_. "I'm not-"

The image sprang into her mind, front and centre, kissing Lucius desperately in Azkaban that last day, choking out a charm she didn't mean. _Oh god am I? I said Repello, but I didn't want to let him go-_

Voldemort turned his wand with precision, and she _felt_ it then, felt the life in her flinch away, felt it curl protectively over onto itself. Backing away, she knew that it was true. Knew, too, that if she'd ever had any idea of his real power she'd never have dared defy him at all.

_I'm sorry I would never have come here if I'd known_

But she hadn't known, and now all of them looked like paying the price.

"Lucius," Voldemort hissed with sudden, malicious humour, thrusting out his arm unerringly, closing it around his lieutenant's throat. "Did you do this?"

Lucius gave only a hoarse little sound of grief. He was staring at her with a look of agony on his face.

Voldemort tugged him closer still, in a deadly armhold, his elbow tight against his neck. "Because I'm not angry. It just proves my point. It isn't enough to live and let live. These filthy, common women are just too seductive for that." Voldemort turned his wand again. "I suppose, Lucius, that you think you love her? That's usually how our blood gets tainted. For all that _boy's_ eulogising about the power of love, haven't you noticed that people who love end up weakened or dead?"

"My Lord-"

" _Legilimens_ ," he hissed against Lucius' temple. "Oh, Lucius, see what a number she did on you? I could forgive that, you know. Better men than you have fallen. Even my Severus loved a Mudblood once. But the tainting of the Malfoy line - that, Lucius, I cannot forgive. Extinction would be better." He was still aiming his wand squarely at Tonks' belly, and Lucius flinched.

And then something in Voldemort's expression changed. The pseudo-hilarity in his voice died.

"You have another secret, Lucius. One deeper even than your infatuation with the Auror." With an air of concentration, he said seductively, "Tell me, Lucius. Give me your secret and I'll let you live."

Tonks locked eyes on Lucius. His face was frozen, dead white in a rictus of horror.

A fragment. That moment when he thought she was Narcissa. _If you came to guard your secret from my likely descent into madness, you needn't worry. The strongholds around you and Draco will be the last part of me to go._

"My love," Lucius rasped, "you can end it."

Tonks dragged in her breath in horror. " _Lucius-_ "

" _Yield,_ " Voldemort hissed into Lucius' ear. "Show me."

" _Do it,_ " Lucius said urgently.

Voldemort gave a roar. "SHOW ME!"

It was that roar that did it. She screamed, " _Avada Kedavra ohgodLuciusno,_ " and whirled around, clutching his ring and stretching out her hand.

The children slammed theirs on top so hard that it _hurt_ , and they Apparated away before Lucius' body hit the ground.

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: NARCISSA]

Narcissa dragged in her breath as the green light of Nymphadora's Killing Curse faded away. It came as a hoarse sound into her hands pressed hard in horror against her mouth.

The room was in uproar. Voldemort had given a ferocious yelp of outrage at being thwarted, and people on both sides had scattered.

She raced through the chaos in rapid strides. Cast the _Petrificus Totalus_ as soon as she was in wand range. Summoned Pinky with a snap of her fingers.

"Madam Malfoy," the elf said, trembling, "Pinky is not meaning to be difficult, but-"

"I know how it works," she said briskly. "This is a request, not an order, and it's in accordance, I can safely say, with the wishes of everyone concerned. Would you please take the Master's body to a place of safety. St Teneu's will do. When this is over, we will see to him decently."

Pinky's brow furrowed, but she nodded. "Pinky will cast the _Petrificus_ to prevent decay."

"I've already done it, but thank you." She turned to Severus, who had just arrived at her side. To her relief, Draco was with him. "Thank Merlin," she whispered, grasping his sleeve. "Severus-"

"I know," Severus said. "We have to find Nymphadora. Now."

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: TONKS]

They Apparated in a tumble in Lucius' bedchamber.

Tonks fell against the bedpost, sinking to the floor as sobs overtook her. They came in gasping, heaving breaths, and shudders that rippled right through her chest. The children were staring at her and she knew she had to stop and plan but she couldn't do it. Couldn't even begin to fathom a world where Lucius was gone and she'd been the one to do it, where she would have to tell their child one day what she had done.

There was a _pop_ , and she flicked her wand to attention, but lowered it when Severus and Narcissa and Draco appeared.

"Narcissa-" she said brokenly, and then the older woman was on her knees beside her, helping her up, sitting her on the bed.

"You need to ward the room, and the house," Severus said urgently. "Lucius' wards died with him."

This penetrated the horror and the grief in Tonks' brain more than anything so far. She stared up at him, uncomprehending.

"Only you can do it," Narcissa prompted. "You're Lady of the Manor now."

Tonks stared at her. "How - I don't -"

"We'll explain. But right now you have to set the wards. Contain the Manor. Protect the children." Narcissa said this pointedly, glancing meaningfully at her belly. "Come on. There's lots to tell, and very little time."

Gulping down tears, she nodded. This was action. She could do this.

Quickly, she cast the wards. Felt the magic of the earth itself rise up and respond to her. Ancient magic. The Malfoys, Lucius had told her, had been on this land for over a thousand years. Grimly, she set about harnessing it. Felt a kernel of determination and used it to get command of herself once more.

When it was done, she sat down on the bed again. She was very quiet and still for a long, long moment, but finally, she looked up, from Narcissa to Severus. The children were sitting on Transfigured chairs behind them. They were watching her expectantly. All of them. Even Draco.

She said clearly, "I want to know Lucius' secret, and I want to know why I'm the Lady of the Manor. And I want to know right now."

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: NARCISSA]

Narcissa set her mouth in a grim line, as though preparing for an unpleasant task, but then she nodded.

"You're the Lady of the Manor because you're carrying Lucius' heir. You will remain so until the child comes of age."

"But Draco-" Nymphadora stopped, and her mouth fell open, just a little. "Oh!"

"Draco _is_ Lucius' heir," Narcissa said quickly. "There was a ritual. The adoption is binding. But as a Malfoy by blood, your child is higher in the order of precedence."

"Adoption?" Draco echoed in a low voice, and Narcissa's gaze fell on him, her heart twisting at the rising disillusion in his eyes. " _Adoption?_ Mother, _who is my father?_ "

Severus said gently, "Draco-"

Draco's gaze dragged from her to Severus, and he rasped, "Him? _Him?_ "

At this, Narcissa launched herself off the bed and sank to her knees before him. "No, no, no, it isn't like that. Your father - Lucius - he knew about Severus before we married. He was under the same pressure to marry as I was, and my family would never have agreed to me marrying a half-blood. Or a man of little means. I'm not sure which would have been worse, really."

Severus spoke from behind them. "Lucius was a great friend to us, Draco. You don't know how much. And he couldn't have loved you more if you'd been his by birth."

Nymphadora, behind them, spoke. "Narcissa, there was a time in Azkaban when Lucius thought I was you. He reassured me that even if his mind broke, his protections around you and Draco would be the last part of him to go. Is this was he meant?"

She'd been strong until then, but that did it, lanced an arrow of hurt into her heart. It was like him reaching out one more time to place a familiar hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes for a long, long moment. "Merlin. Yes. Yes, it would have been that. You saw - you saw how the Dark Lord feels about tainting the bloodlines -" she couldn't finish, her eyes filling with tears, and she could see through filmy vision that Draco's face had gone very soft and his jaw trembled. She latched onto his hand, and he tried to pull away, but she only gripped tighter. After a long, long moment of hostility and standoff, he yielded. Let her comfort him and squeezed back.

Severus' voice rose up behind them. He said reluctantly, "Actually, there was more to it than that. That is, I never told Lucius there was more, but I think he guessed. At least part of it."

Narcissa knew a moment of supreme surprise. Slowly, she turned from her crouching position by Draco to stare up at him. He was standing, leaning against the mantle, as he so often did when something grave was being discussed.

She straightened, and said slowly, "Darling, do you have something you need to tell me?"

Severus grimaced. "Several things, actually, but the most important relates to the prophecy about young Mr Potter here." He nodded in Harry's direction.

Narcissa closed her eyes for a long moment. Potter again. For a moment, she wished the Dark Lord would just do away with the wretched boy and be done with it. Then she remembered she favoured neither a world under the Dark Lord's rule, nor the killing of children either, and she sighed and said, "Go on."

"As you all know, the substance of the prophecy was that a boy would be born at the end of the following July, to parents who had defied the Dark Lord three times, and he would be the one with the power to defeat him. What some of you don't know is that I was the one who reported the prophecy to the Dark Lord in the first place."

Narcissa stared at him. She could feel the blood draining from her face.

"I have no excuse for it. It was a foolish, dangerous thing to do," Severus went on. Looking suddenly rather embarrassed, he explained more quietly, "You and Lucius were on your honeymoon, and I didn't know him well. I didn't understand why he kept you away for so long. I think now that he was trying to distance himself from his father's death, but at the time, I mistrusted him. I had only his word for it that it would be a marriage only in name. I believed I would probably lose you, and I was looking, I suppose, for approval and belonging elsewhere."

"I had no idea," Narcissa said softly. She felt welling sadness, welling compassion for the misguided young man he had once been.

"I know. I came to realise that he was an honourable man, in his own rather odd and selective way, but I didn't know that then. And Sybill Trelawney was widely believed to be out of her mind, trading on her family name, and lacking any Seer ability of her own. It seemed harmless. Frankly, I assumed anyone in the business of defying the Dark Lord would have the sense not to have children at all." Harry and the Longbottom boy both looked outraged at that, but he went on, looking directly at Draco, "I was, of course, very young, and had not yet been in the situation of fathering an unwise, yet very loved and wanted child myself."

Draco blinked suddenly, and his Adam's apple bobbed, but he said nothing.

"Well. Then you came home, and then there was Draco. The three of us agreed that Lucius would acknowledge him. At that time, I knew of no one who might fit the prophecy. The Potters and the Longbottoms both hid their pregnancies." Narcissa put her hand to her mouth as it all fell into place. "I knew only that the three of us had defied him - once each, three times in total - and _Draco was due at the end of July._ "

Draco said softly, "My birthday is the fifth of June."

Narcissa shook her head. "We - we back-dated you, you might say, to make it appear you were conceived on my honeymoon with Lucius."

Severus nodded. "It was my idea. I told Lucius it was to make your paternity seem air-tight. But I think, later, he figured out that there was more to it. He confronted me about the prophecy and your date of birth."

Harry spoke. "You're not saying that _Draco_ is the Chosen One?"

"No," Severus said hurriedly. "The Dark Lord marked you as his equal, so you it remains. But Sybill made a final prophecy to me before she died, that there are three more Sons of July without whom you cannot succeed. The first is a son of parents who spend their lives in waking sleep - Longbottom here. The second is Draco."

Narcissa shook her head in horror. "No. No. _No!_ "

Severus said gently, "Narcissa, we were referred to specifically. You were mentioned by name, and there was an alliance in the Dark Lord's house to hide a son. There can be no doubt."

"Who is the third?" Nymphadora demanded. There was a look of dread on her face.

Severus turned to face her fully. "The final Son is 'sown beneath his mother's breast.' I take that to refer to a younger child than the others, one still in the womb. The prophecy spoke of a woman who would kill to be kind, and in so doing, be bound to the alliance that is myself, Narcissa, and Lucius. I believe, Nymphadora, that the final Son is your child. Conceived, I think, on July thirtieth of this year, when you impersonated Narcissa and used her right to a conjugal visit to Azkaban?"

Nymphadora pressed her lips into a thin line, but said nothing. As if she had already guessed. 

Narcissa closed her eyes. "Oh, dear Merlin."

"If it's any help, Narcissa," Severus said grimly, "Sybill told me before she died that there is a natural order. Maybe the earth itself moves against someone like the Dark Lord. Perhaps it was meant to happen."

"It doesn't help in the slightest," she said dryly.

Draco lifted his hand in the air, like he was in a schoolroom. "Excuse me, question from the illegitimate son here." There was a note of dry, slightly desperate humour in his voice. It heartened her to hear it.

Severus said gravely, "Legitimacy is a state of mind, Draco. You have a right to exist. You're acknowledged as having a place in the world by three parents who love you."

Draco mustered a mirthless smile. "You always did do a good pep talk." Harry and his friends were exchanging raised eyebrows, and it occurred to Narcissa with a muted kind of amusement that Severus was probably not always the supportive Housemaster she knew from Draco's version of events. She could well imagine that Gryffindors got under his skin. Especially _these_ ones. 

"Thank you, I think. In any event, you had a question. Ask it."

"I'm guessing from all this - _Father_ -" he inserted this ironically "- that you're not on the side of all things Dark after all?"

Narcissa cocked an eyebrow. "I'm rather curious about that, too. And in particular when your allegiances changed."

Severus looked extremely uncomfortable, but he held her gaze. "It was when he went after Lily."

" _Lily?_ " she echoed. It was like the bottom falling out of her heart, through her stomach like cold, hard lead. Tears sprung to her eyes. " _Severus-_ "

"No," he insisted, crossing the gap between them and taking her hands in his. His eyes were terribly soft and concerned. "Not like that. I'd loved her as a boy, but that was long past. But I was horrified to have put her in danger. And I had a child myself by then. I knew what it was to fear for the world that child would inherit. I'd learned to look past myself. It wasn't about looking for a place to belong anymore. I had a place to belong, with you and Draco, and now it was about protecting it."

She swallowed hard. Nodded slowly. Considering this. "Then what?"

"I went to Dumbledore. I didn't trust him enough to tell him about you and Draco, so I told him I was still in love with Lily, and begged him to help her. It wasn't difficult to persuade him, even when he used Legilimency - I had years of feeling for her to draw on, and my conviction was genuine even if it came from a completely different place than he believed. The price was joining his side. I agreed. He didn't realise I'd have joined anyway."

"You never told him?"

"No. Like Lucius, that was one thing I never entrusted to anyone." He turned his gaze to Nymphadora. "I take it he told not even you?"

She shook her head. "No. Not even me." She turned her gaze on Narcissa. Her eyes glittering, she said in a low, hurting voice, "He was very loyal, you know." 

Narcissa held her gaze and nodded, great compassion and understanding passing between them. "He was. And he loved you very much."

"And I killed him," Nymphadora whispered.

"To save his sons. Both of them," Severus said. "You loved him enough to do it at his command, whether you understood it or not, and you were strong enough to live with it after. He knew that. It's why he asked." Very gently, he went on, "He trusted you with it."

Tears slipped down Nymphadora's cheeks, and she looked away.

There was a moment of quiet, but then Harry said tentatively, "I have a question."

Severus said, "Go on."

"You never seemed to like me."

"I _don't_ like you."

"No, but I mean - was that about - my Mum?"

"Not at all. You were more trouble than every other student I'd ever taught, combined. You made my life extremely difficult, caused trouble with and physical injury to my son - yes, I know he had a hand in it too - and in the process summoned some rather ugly memories of being bullied by your father. I resented the aggravation and the stress. It really wasn't any more complex, or serious, than that." Harry nodded, slowly. "But I had to exaggerate it. I had the Dark Lord and his followers, who had to believe I was just barely tolerating you in order to avenge him when the time came." Frowning, he went on, "Even worse, I had Dumbledore, who had to believe I was still motivated by being stuck in the throes of a teenage crush even in my thirties. Which, if you think about it, is really quite absurd. The only alternative would have been to have seemed extremely protective and fond of you - projecting my feelings for your mother rather than your father - but that would have tipped off the other side." Harry nodded, understanding. "So you see, I had to seem spiteful and jealous in the eyes of virtually everyone involved. I don't like you, but I don't hate you either. And much of what I dislike is not really of your doing."

Harry said in awe, "You sound like an _adult._ "

"As opposed to a perpetually jealous and petty adolescent, unleashing childhood grudges on a little boy? Very much my point. I'm sure it was unpleasant for you, and I'm genuinely regretful for that, but I didn't have a lot of options." 

Harry nodded again. Seeming to accept this. "All right."

This seemed to close the subject, and Severus turned his attention back to Narcissa. "There you have it, Narcissa. I never betrayed you, but I betrayed virtually everything else you held dear. What have you to say about it?"

She held his gaze. "The things I was born into are not the things I hold dear. The only side I'm on is yours. Whatever side that is. Don't you know that by now?"

A nerve in Severus' cheek seemed to flicker a moment, and then he nodded.

Harry said, "Draco? What about you? What side are you?"

Draco looked from him, to Severus, to her. Narcissa thought he looked very young.

Finally, he locked his gaze on her, and said, "My mother's. If hers is his, and his is yours, then I'm on yours."

Nymphadora spoke up, voice low and bruised with grief, but filled with resolve. 

"Good," she said. "Because I have a plan."

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: TONKS]

"Be careful," she whispered into Neville's ear as they waited. "Of all of us, you're the most exposed."

Neville stared straight ahead. "If you could do what you had to do, then I can do this."

She almost lost it then. Almost.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Tonks," Harry said awkwardly. "That was...awful."

She felt her chin quaver and stilled it. Nodded. "Thanks. If we live through this, I reckon I might have to call on you boys to play big brother to the poor little thing."

Hermione said, "He sounded so different when Professor Snape and Mrs Malfoy were talking about him. He sounded...good." There was a note of question in her voice.

Tonks felt salt rise in her throat and her heart grow tight in her chest. It took everything she had, but she dragged it back. There would be time for that later. "He _was_ good. I know that's hard to understand. It wasn't your sort of good. It wasn't save-the-world good. He'd let the world go to hell to save his family. Maybe that's not the sort of good you need in a war, but it's a kind of good, just the same." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and said abruptly, "Can we not do this right now?"

"Sorry," Hermione said hastily. She gripped Tonks' hand in hers.

They were interrupted (thank _God!_ ) by pounding footsteps.

"I don't know the Manor well enough to control it all yet," Draco was saying. "But I've closed off wings and rooms. Made a funnel. All we have to do is follow them, and we'll have them cornered."

"Good work, Draco," Voldemort said, clasping his hand down on the boy's shoulder. "Don't you think it's good work, Bellatrix? Your nephew might be worth something after all."

"I always said so, my Lord," Bella said breathlessly (and, Tonks assumed from the look on Narcissa's face, this was a blatant lie).

"Potter is singularly unimaginative, my Lord," Severus said, "and his faith in the Order will already be shaken by the discovery that one of its trusted lieutenants was sleeping with the enemy. As she now knows she is with child, she will undoubtedly abstain from the fight. We have warded off the parts of the Manor with the werewolf, the Berber, and the Weasleys. Unfortunately, we can let no more of our own inside either, but we still have them outnumbered. They are, after all, only children."

Voldemort nodded. "Very good."

Bellatrix was skipping ahead. "Where's Harry Potter?" she said singsong. "Where's that little rotter?"  
Tonks gave a nod, and Neville bolted out of their hiding place. "Bellatrix Lestrange! I've got business with you!"

"Neville, _don't!_ " Harry hissed theatrically, grabbing his arm. Then, as Voldemort locked eyes on him, he said, "Shit!" Tugging him by the arm, Harry raced down the hallway away from their pursuers, dodging curses as they went.

"Next phase," Tonks hissed to Hermione and the others. "Go now so I can close up the wards." She ran out into the open and called from behind Voldemort, "Harry! Portkey!" She waited for Voldemort to turn, and made a show of tossing a goblet over their heads. Harry caught it and it began to glow.

"My Lord," Severus said urgently as Voldemort prepared to strike out at her, "leave her. We have to get to the Portkey. She alone has the power to breach Draco's wards, through the life she carries. We'll lose them if we don't." He was already racing ahead with Draco. Draco got there first, landing his hand on Neville's wrist, and Severus latched onto Draco, holding out his hand to Voldemort.

Voldemort grabbed onto Severus just as the Portkey carried them away.

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: NARCISSA]

Bellatrix was swearing.

"Dammit. Dammit!" she screeched, stamping her feet. It was a childish display. It wasn't the first Narcissa had seen since they were adults. It wasn't even the first this week.

"Bella, don't," she said tiredly. "Please."

"We _lost_ them! Don't you understand that, you stupid bint? And your idiot of a husband didn't fucking help. Just couldn't keep it in his breeches, could he?"

Narcissa steeled her jaw, fighting her grief down. "Forget Lucius," she said ruthlessly. "I have. The Dark Lord is with them. I'm sure he'll summon you when he needs you. So really, you can stop worrying." 

She cast her eye around the room, quickly evaluating them. Pius Thicknesse was Imperiused, but without orders, he was harmless. Scabior was up for a fight for fun, but not one he might not win. Yaxley was fanatical, but obedient to the letter, while Rookwood lacked the initiative to kill without orders. She dismissed them.

McNair might be a problem; he liked to kill. Obedience was secondary. And Selwyn was paranoid. Then, of course, there was Bella.

She was not a skilled Occlumens. Nymphadora had set up a Portkey to use if suspicion fell on her, but then the others would be alerted to the trap. She had to time it just right.

Suddenly, she wished she had gone with the others to Little Whinging after all.

 

[30 SEPTEMBER 1997: TONKS]

Tonks closed the wards behind her, praying that Narcissa's luck would hold, and grasped a Portkey of her own. She should arrive only a minute or two after the rest of them; she would see if the illusion had held.

She arrived out on the front lawn of Number 4 Privet Drive, landing with a little huff of breath. Kingsley and Molly helped her to her feet. Standing a little way off were a tired old Muggle couple and a big hulking teenager, shivering in the cool night air. Remus was talking to them, the lines of his face gentle and soothing.

"Are those the Dursleys?" she said curiously. Petunia seemed...smaller...than she remembered.

Kingsley nodded. "They're none too happy, and fair enough. We've warded the whole property, though, so no matter what happens in there, the neighbours shouldn't see a thing. That's something."

"Thanks for getting this together so fast."

"It was the least we could do. Tonks, I'm so sorry-"

"Later," she said sharply, holding up her hand. It was trembling. She whispered, "I can't. Not now."

His eyes softened. "All right." He cleared his throat. "There's some impressive spellwork in there, if I do say so myself. Fortunately the downstairs rooms are just about the right size to double for the front reception rooms at the Manor. We didn't have time to do a full restructure. And fortunately those rooms have been used for fundraisers in the past. I was able to get the broad look from memory, and Lucius' elves added the detail. Ron and Hermione worked with them on that."

A vague memory rose up in her mind, Hermione talking heatedly about elf rights. A flicker of a smile passed over her features. "I'm sure she enjoyed that." Of course, Lucius' elves were her elves now, and again the fact of his death came pummelling down in her mind like a mortal blow. It was something she had to fight off like a crushing weight on her chest, her breaths quick and harsh.  
Kingsley nodded. He was looking at her watchfully, eyes clouded with concern.

She went on hurriedly, "I want to go in. It won't blow the illusion - Severus made sure to mention that I could breach the wards."

Kingsley's brow was still furrowed, but he nodded. "Good. We need an adult in there besides Severus. I want his cover intact until the very last second."

Tonks nodded in understanding. "How do we do it?"

"We're going to put some people in the upstairs area, have them make some noise, so Draco has an excuse for the wards staying up. We didn't have time to do anything there. We'll have you come in with them, then jump the wards alone. You won't be able to get back out, though - they're really our wards, and there's no way we can give you an exit without giving the Dark Lord one as well." Kingsley locked eyes on her, and said, "Be careful, Tonks. You don't have the protections in there that you have in the Manor. Harry is protected because the power of Lily's sacrifice lingers in her sister's home, and Draco is protected because Lucius' sacrifice is so fresh. But you and Neville are exposed."

Tonks nodded. "I'll be careful. I won't let it have been for nothing."

"Good girl."

Kingsley clapped a hand on her shoulder, and then he took her in.

* * *

When she arrived, she knew a moment of utter disorientation.

Kingsley was right, it _was_ impressive. She felt like she was in the Manor. Felt like she could sit down and pick up Lucius' book and read his tiny annotations in the margins. A wave of grief swept over her, so hard and fast that it was like swooning, and she grasped onto the mantle for support.

"We're in luck, my Lord," Severus was saying, not far from where she stood, Disillusioned. "Nymphadora has deduced that she can open up warded parts of the Manor, but it has obviously not occurred to her that she could get them away altogether. Draco here still has almost total control."

"What good is that?" Voldemort snapped. "Half the Order are directly above us. We couldn't open anything up if we wanted to. Half my soldiers are stuck at the other end of the house."

"It matters not," Severus soothed. "Deal with the boy, and the rest will fall. He is their straw man."

A note of hilarity entered Voldemort's voice. "Do I detect a tone of blood lust there, Severus? I didn't think you had it in you."

"Didn't you? All those years, living under the same roof as him, not being able to touch him under Dumbledore's watch? After the way he left you, hurt, almost destroyed?" Severus' voice was needling now, coaxing, worrying at past failures. "My Lord, you can't imagine how I've wanted to see you finish him, once and for all. And here, in the Manor, under Draco's protection - he is loyal where his father was not - here, my Lord, it can be done."

Tonks almost gagged. How did the old bugger _fall_ for this nauseating stuff? You'd think Severus had a bloody great crush on him.

"My good faithful Severus," Voldemort said in satisfaction, and Tonks shook her head. Never underestimate the power of a good sycophant, she supposed. She'd never learned to be one, herself.

Draco came racing into the room, gasping for breath. "Bloody arseholes managed to get halfway up the stairs to their little friends. I got them back down and shut it off." He held out his wand to Voldemort. "I know about the link between his wand and yours. It'd be my pleasure to see you off the little bastard with mine."

"Excellent," Voldemort said, taking it. "Let us destroy this _enfant terrible_ once and for all."

* * *

There was something about cataclysmic showdowns that brought out the theatre in people, Tonks reflected. 

Voldemort, however, did not quite fit the category of _people_ anymore, and he didn't indulge in drama, either. No tortured explanations of how and why he was going to finish Harry. He simply strode in, aimed his wand, and cast the _Avada Kedavra_.

Tonks was unwillingly impressed.

The room went silent for a long, long moment as both Harry and Voldemort crumpled to the ground. She and Neville ran to Harry's side, checking. Feeling for a pulse. She looked up at Severus and gave a single, slow nod.

"Good," Severus said, the word a silent shape on his lips.

Both began to stir, and hurriedly, she and Neville got Harry to his feet. That meant showing herself, but it couldn't be helped. 

Severus and Draco made a show of helping Voldemort. Voldemort grasped at them just long enough to steady himself, then shook them off.

"This is not Malfoy Manor," he growled. " _Finite Incantatem!_ "

The illusion unravelled around them, stone floors replaced with awful Muggle carpet, books replaced by DVDs, candelabras replaced by fluorescent lights. As it did, Severus and Draco moved away from him, in opposite directions. Voldemort took a single step back.

"I've been betrayed," he hissed. "Very well; I'll deal with you both later. But first, Potter." He aimed Draco's wand at Harry.

"You'll have to wait a while," Draco said in sour humour. "This is Little Whinging."

Harry allowed himself a smirk. "Blood protection, remember that? You can cast the A-K at me as many times as you like, but you won't be able to kill me. Feel free to wear yourself out trying, though."

Voldemort gave an ugly, twisted smile. "Maybe I'll just kill all your friends, then take my time with you while you're in St Mungo's suffering traumatic shock."

"You can try," Severus said, "but almost everyone in this room is covered, to varying degrees, by some form of blood protection. If you go casting spells indiscriminately, you're going to find them repelling on you." He added ironically, "My Lord."

Voldemort turned on his lieutenant. "My my, Severus, you _have_ come up in the world. But I have a secret, and that secret means I get to walk away, and you don't. If you tell me who's protected and who's not, maybe I'll just kill you instead of setting Bellatrix on you."

Tonks grabbed Neville by the hand and edged backwards, behind Harry. There was no point trying to hide; the fluorescent lights were too strong for that. The best they could do was try to get out of the line of fire. 

Before, she thought would have hesitated to hide behind another, blood protection or not. But now, she felt a ruthlessness she'd never felt before. Lucius was dead ( _Avada Kedavra ohgodLuciusno_ ), but their child would live.

"The Horcruxes?" Severus was saying. "We know about those. We've been killing them, in fact."

"And you think I don't know that?" Voldemort sneered. "There's still one, Severus. I've felt them die, but there's still one left."

"Are you so sure of that?" Severus taunted. "You didn't, for instance, feel it die when you struck Harry just now?"

Voldemort opened his mouth, and then shut it again. And then suddenly his face turned vicious.

"You! You did this! Lucius and Draco and all of it!" His wand was aimed at Severus' heart. " _Avada Kedavra!_ "

Tonks gave a little scream, and Severus fell to the floor.

 

[1 OCTOBER 1997: NARCISSA]

"What happened?"

Severus said this as he opened his eyes, then cringed and closed them again against the powerful Muggle street lights.

Narcissa, leaning over him, forced out a little smile, but it was a miserable effort, made through tears and trembling lips. "Lucius' sacrificial protection must have extended to you. He must have been thinking of you, as well as Draco and I when he did what he did." She stroked his face. "Oh, Severus."

Severus started to get up, then put his hand to the back of his head and winced. "What happened to my head?" he amended.

"You hit it on the Muggles' floor. Linoleum, Kingsley said. He says it's quite as hard as stone." She nodded across the lawn. "Everyone else is fine. The Longbottom boy is shaken up - adrenaline mostly, I think. He and Nymphadora were the only ones without protection in there, so they were particularly vulnerable."

Severus' expression was soft. "And Draco?" he said gently. His gaze had found their son, standing awkwardly a little distance off where she knelt with him in the grass. He held his arms stiffly across his body. Watching them, his face pale and pinched with fear.

"Draco's safe, but upset," she said. Added reproachfully, "He said Voldemort was supposed to go after _him_ \- that's why he gave Voldemort his own wand, to disarm himself."

Severus had the good grace to look sheepish. "I knew you wouldn't like that. But besides Potter, the sacrificial protection on him was strongest. We expected that Voldemort would try to kill him, and be killed by his own rebounding spell." He reached up and stroked her cheek. "He's nearly a man, darling, and a brave one, too. He offered, and I respected that."

Narcissa summoned a rather strained smile at that, and leaned into his hand, cradling it with hers. "Yes, so he said. He was horrified that Voldemort turned on you instead. None of us knew the blood protection was on you as well. He thought you were dead." She glanced up at Draco once more, thinking of the difficult days ahead, days of rebuilding bonds and families and lives. "Perhaps...it's a blessing in disguise."

"Perhaps so."

She said with rather forced brightness, "The Order are rounding up the remaining Death Eaters. Half of them are at the Manor, and the rest should fall within days." One of those was her sister, and she felt a pang at that, but only a pang. Bella had made her own choices.

Severus nodded.

Suddenly, tears stung her eyes and slipped down her cheeks. They seemed to come from nowhere.

"Narcissa," he said gently. Groping for her hand.

"I want to go home," she whispered. "You and me and Draco and Nymphadora. I want to see to Lucius. Can we do that?"

With difficulty, Severus levered himself up to sit and draw her close.

"Yes, my love. We can. We must."

 

[1 OCTOBER 1997: TONKS]

"Oh, Lucius."

She whispered this as she sank down to her knees beside his body, after Draco had said his goodbyes and moved away.

Pinky had laid him out on the Boleyn altar, with a bed of loose hay beneath his head. His hair was long and flowing and he was warm beneath her fingertips. Like he was only sleeping.

The tears she had been holding back all night spilled over as the light of the dawn lit on his features. She bent and kissed his brow. "Come back," she whispered uselessly into his hair as her tears slipped down her cheeks. "I wish you could come back." And then she sank her head to his chest as silent sobs wracked through her.

Narcissa was beside her, rubbing her back in small circles. "I know," she said gently. "We loved him, too."

That only made her weep harder.

Presently, she heard Narcissa say, "Severus."

Footsteps, as Severus came over. Rustling sounds as he sank down opposite.

Narcissa spoke once more. Said softly, "How?"

Tonks wiped her face with her hands, messily, like a little girl. "How what?"

Tentatively, Narcissa took her hand, and placed it on Lucius' chest.

Lucius was breathing.

 

[1 OCTOBER 1997: LUCIUS]

"So it _was_ you."

He was with Muggle-Queen Anne - Lady Anne, he corrected, she preferred her title by birth - walking through the grounds of the Manor. The Chapel of St Teneu was visible in the distance. Through the west window, he could see Narcissa with her arm around Nymphadora's shoulder, while Draco sat huddled in the east window, hugging himself. Severus was looking on.

Lady Anne was smiling, her face turned up towards the sun. "Yes, it was me. You could say I had a special interest in your dilemma, Lucius."

He looked at her sidelong. "Explain."

"Do you know much of my story, Lucius?"

"Not a lot," he admitted. "I know you were married to a Muggle King, and that it ended badly."

The corners of her mouth turned upwards. "You could say that. The King was married to a very nice woman who had borne several stillborn children. They had a daughter only, and he was obsessed with getting a son to take the throne. For some...reason...he became fixated on me." She went on reflectively, "He wrote poems and songs and gave my family property and titles. It probably sounds very romantic, but it wasn't. I couldn't extricate myself. There came a point where my whole world was dominated by him. There was nowhere to go, except the wizarding world, but I had rejected Druidism. Rightly or wrongly, I didn't feel I could go there."

"How long did it go on?"

"Seven years, plus another three in marriage," she said mirthlessly. "I finally married him, had a daughter, and lost two more. By then he'd found another queen, and I was falsely accused, tried, and executed." 

She tilted her head forward and brushed aside her dark hair. He could see the faintest hairline of a scar. It was a clean scar, a sword, he thought, not an axe. 

"The irony is, my daughter went on to rule Muggle England for forty-four years. So you see, Lucius, I know what it is to feel pressure for an heir - and to find yourself with one that is not the one you imagined. And to know that the child you love dearly may one day cost you your life."

Lucius nodded slowly. St Teneu's was closer now; he could see Nymphadora, Narcissa, and Severus talking with animation. Their stance was far removed from the _pieta_ of a few minutes ago.

" _May?_ " he echoed, slowly. Wondering if he had understood correctly.

Anne gave a slow smile. "You have a choice to make, Lucius. Return, or join us."

He slowed to a stop. Gradually realised that he could feel cool grass beneath his feet; that his hair was damp with mist - and that Lady Anne's was not. He was closer to the world of the living than she.

"Why?" he asked. "Is it - because of what I did?"

Anne's laughter rang out, so clear and high and lovely that he thought Nymphadora and the others _must_ be able to hear it. "Oh, heavens, no, Lucius. Plenty of people sacrificed themselves, better people than you, and were not given this choice." 

That was true enough, he thought. "What, then?"

"Accident," she said simply. "It is pure accident that you are here, nothing more. You see, while you came close, you never _completely_ died."

"I don't understand."

"No," she said, "and it doesn't matter. What matters is, you need to choose."

She turned from him then, and left him, and Lucius turned towards the chapel and chose.

 

[1 OCTOBER 1997: SEVERUS]

"I don't want you to get your hopes up."

Severus said this as he prepared his potions.

"Severus," Nymphadora said, "that's quite useless. My hopes are at least one hundred percent better than they were an hour ago." Her voice was mild and pleasant, a thin veneer over nervous hands clenching and unclenching as she paced the chapel.

"Well, just the same," he said. "The biological operation of the Avada Kedavra is really not understood. There are three dominant theories." He counted them on his fingers. "Firstly, that all cellular activity ceases; second, that all electrical activity ceases; and thirdly, that the soul is simply detached from the body and passes on." 

Narcissa and Nymphadora were nodding. Draco was sitting in the window, silent and watchful.

He went on, "If it's the third, I can do nothing. Souls are not a matter for potions. It is possible he will be given some kind of choice, on the strength of his self-sacrifice, but it's nothing we can influence either way. Electrical cessation is not something we understand properly, either. But the elixir I'm preparing may be able to kick-start cellular activity. Resuscitate him, as Muggle medicine would say."

Nymphadora said nervously, "Severus, when a person has been dead for as long as Lucius, isn't there brain damage?"

"Yes, there is. But Lucius was down less than a minute before Narcissa cast the _Petrificus_. That would be enough to delay cellular death. It takes quite a while for a person to completely die, you know."

"The Killing Curse is normally immediate," Nymphadora protested. "You can't tell me something as simple as the _Petrificus_ is a defence."

Severus allowed himself a small smile. "Remember first year Charms? You have to really _mean_ it, Nymphadora. Ambivalence weakens a charm. I suspect that's why we have our son, and you have yours. You meant it enough to be able to _start_ the process of dying, and I'm sure Lucius would still have died if Narcissa had not cast the _Petrificus_ , but with it-"

Draco spoke up. "How long until we know?"

Severus said, "We give him the elixir, reverse the _Petrificus_ , and then we wait."

 

[29 OCTOBER 1997: LUCIUS]

He was in his own bed.

He'd spent much of the last month drifting in a no-man's land between life and death. His semi-conscious moments had been punctuated with tears and smiles from Nymphadora and Narcissa and Draco and Severus (well, not so much with the tears and smiles from Severus), and his sleeping had been haunted by crazy technicolour dreams of Anne Boleyn. He could remember nothing coherent of the latter, but he supposed it might make a good dinner story later anyway.

He knew he was over the worst of it when he woke in his own bed, with Nymphadora asleep, curled up on top of the covers in the crook of his arm. From this, he deduced that he was now out of death's shadow, and merely recovering. Presumably she would not want to risk waking beside his corpse.

"Lucius?" she whispered, her eyes flying open, and he got a good look at her, at how drawn she was, dark eye sockets and pale features. It wasn't good for the-

And then he remembered.

"The baby?" he asked, with a slow, incredulous smile.

She nodded. Smiled too. Eyes gleaming as she drew his hand to touch her belly - to touch their child, for the first time. "Baby's okay." 

His smile broadened, and he stroked back her hair, tucking it fondly behind her ear. "So what have I missed? Apart from Voldemort coming to a richly deserved demise, which I assume from the fact that we're all alive and the Manor is intact."

Nymphadora snorted. "That's a pretty amazing tale all on its own. But besides that, you've been granted parole from Azkaban." At his questioning look, she explained, "It seems that people think you knew more about Draco's future role in bringing down Voldemort than you really did. It looked like you asked me to kill you in order to ensure his downfall. We didn't disabuse them of that notion. It's only a suspended sentence, though. One foot wrong, of course-"

"And it's back to Azkaban. Of course." He added with a smirk, "Nymphadora Tonks, lying to the Ministry? I _am_ a bad influence on you."

Her voice dropped a little. "I figured - with the war over - maybe I could stop fighting so much for ideas. Start fighting for the people I love. Like you and this baby. Hell, Narcissa and Severus and Draco, too, if they'll have me. Merlin knows no-one _else_ is likely to want to know me." She said it complacently enough.

Lucius offered a faint smile. "Well, maybe I can learn to fight for ideas a bit, too. Maybe we can meet in the middle."

"Maybe."

He said tentatively, "Nymphadora, can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"There was a prophecy before Draco was born. One made just to me, on Samhain. I knew, when I acknowledged him, that one day I would have to die for him. It said that I would look on eyes that were kind, and I would know the moment and find courage when it came." 

Nymphadora was suddenly very pale. Her jaw was trembling and her eyes were wet. 

He went on more quietly, "What you did, was meant. You didn't do anything wrong. You did everything right."

Nymphadora was shivering, wounds sudden and still fresh, and he drew her close. Stroked her hair with little nonsense sounds as she wept hard against him, her face buried, her thin shoulders shuddering silently. "Oh, God, Lucius, that moment-"

"Don't," he murmured. "Don't."

She shook and sniffled a little, but at last, she settled. Tucked herself in tighter against him and fell still. 

"Don't tell Draco," she said at last, muffled against his chest.

"What?"

"Don't tell Draco," she repeated, looking up at him. "He needs to know you love him as a person, not just an obligation to his mother, or a prophecy. Let him think - it was because you love him."

"It _was_ because I love him."

"I know. But trust me. I want him to - to still feel like he's yours."

Lucius quoted softly, "I will guard you and the things you hold dear."

She looked at him quizzically. "What?"

"It was one of my vows with Narcissa. The only one either of us meant. I guarded her and Severus and Draco. And she guarded you and me."

"Yes, she did," Nymphadora said, and for a moment, Lucius had a flash of half-remembered image in his mind, these two women he loved most, standing together comforting each other in the chapel in the light of the rising sun. He wondered if it had happened at all.

"Would you consider it - odd - if I asked if we could take that vow, too?"

She didn't comment on his implied proposal. Just shook her head. "No. I'd like that."

Just then, there was a tap on the door. Nymphadora extricated herself from him and moved into the chair beside the bed. "Come in," he called.

Draco hovered in the doorway a moment. "Hi Dad - Lucius -" he broke off. Uncertainty spreading over his face.

Lucius' heart twisted, and he held out his hand. "Son."

At this, all the tension seemed to go out of Draco. He crossed the room in three strides, sat down, and tucked his body in against Lucius like he was a child of three. They'd never been demonstrative, really - if anything, Lucius thought he'd probably been a rather hard father - but he found himself tugging the boy hard against him and holding him tight.

" _Dad,_ " Draco whispered.

Lucius murmured into Draco's hair. Things like _we love you_ and _we're family_ and _everything's going to be all right._

Perhaps for the first time, he thought, catching Nymphadora's eye, all of it was completely and utterly true.

* * *

"I think we should end our marriage."

It was a strange tableau in which Narcissa said this, seated by his side, cradling his hand against her cheek, this woman he loved second only to one.

Lucius raised an eyebrow. "You're that anxious to be rid of me, then, Narcissa?" There was a gleam of good humour in his eye.

She released his hand. "I thought - with Nymphadora - and the baby - you'd want -"

"I do," he said shortly. "But what of you, Narcissa?"

"Severus has asked me to marry him. I said I wouldn't without your blessing."

Lucius gave a bark of laughter at that. "You're your own woman, Narcissa. You always have been."

Her voice was very serious. "I know. But we built this family together, and it's important to me."

He gave her a small nod of acknowledgement. "Then you shall have my every blessing."

Just then, Severus came into the room, shutting the door gently behind him. Oblivious to their exchange, he came around her and set down Lucius' potions on the bedside table. He laid a hand on her shoulder as he passed, and she took it, squeezing it for a second before letting go.

Lucius said approvingly, "You're finally holding hands. Good for you."

Narcissa said warmly. "It's a new world out there, Lucius."

"Not so new that you don't have room for a friendly ex-husband, I hope."

Narcissa's smile broadened. "Never," she said, leaning forward to kiss his brow. "I have every intention of us being the happiest divorced couple in the world."

Lucius looked up at Severus. "Severus? What say you?"

Severus said gravely, "I say that we choose our family, as we always have."

They had started out as a strange little family, Lucius reflected, and so it remained. And while they had accidentally changed the world and endangered the world and saved the world along the way, the family was what mattered.

And the family would endure.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This novella was based on my Lucius/Tonks vignette [Kill To Be Kind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/376768), which includes many of the plot elements teased out here, although with a completely different Lucius/Tonks vibe.
> 
> 2\. Pennyroyal was a herb of choice for abortion in the Middle Ages.
> 
> 3\. St Teneu was a 6th century princess, and the mother of St Mungo. She became pregnant after either being raped or seduced, and was thrown off a cliff by her furious father, the King. She survived the fall and was sheltered with her baby in Culross. I chose her as the reference point for the chapel in Malfoy Manor, because of her connection with another saint recognised in the wizarding world, and due to her parallels with Narcissa, who was pregnant under dangerous circumstances and was sheltered in the Malfoy family. 
> 
> 4\. In France, from medieval times, the maîtresse-en-titre was the King's official or favoured mistress. The maîtresse-en-titre was powerful and the position actively sought, by fair means or foul. However, her position was subject entirely to the strength and duration of the King's affections. The question for the maîtresse-en-titre was - how much mileage could she get from her attachment to the King, before her leverage ran out?
> 
> 5\. I massaged timeframes a lot, excusing my poetic licence on the basis that JK's own sense of time is dodgy. (See [HP Wikia](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Dating_conventions)). My biggest piece of manipulation was pushing Harry and his Hogwart's cohort's birthdates into 1981, in order to make the Little Whinging plot twist work. 
> 
> 6\. Another piece of tinkering: Narcissa was, according to OOTP family tree, born in 1955, a year after Lucius. Severus was born in 1961. However, it seems unlikely that the dutiful Narcissa (a) married young but then waited until she was 26 to have Draco, or (b) did not marry until her mid-twenties. So I made Narcissa's birthyear 1958, giving her a smaller age difference to Severus and a more likely timeframe for her marriage.
> 
> 7\. The _Repello_ charm (literally, to ward off) is usually, I would like to think, at least as effective as Muggle birth control. However, in this universe, Narcissa's emotional state on her return from Venice, and her conscious desire to let Severus in completely, undid the charm. The same could apply in the case of Lucius and Tonks, and they believe it, but they forgot that magic was blocked on Azkaban. Also, as the conjugal suite was originally used for the continuation of magical bloodlines, there might be lingering, cumulative fertility magic in the environment. 
> 
> 8\. Many social elements are historical. Wardship of a child of equal social standing as a means of getting an heir, and/or expanding an estate, was common throughout medieval England. (There were other types of adoption and wardship that were not as happy, including grooming of a girl as a wife for an older man). The Druid welcoming rite mentions the danger period - a child is only welcomed into the world once it is deemed likely to live. Later, announcements of the birth of royal babies were similarly delayed. Settlements paid by a man breaking an engagement are historical in Victorian England. The settlement recognises that the woman will probably never make a suitable marriage and must support herself. There are variations on this theme all over the world even today. In northern Morocco, a man pays his fiancée a dowry for this reason.
> 
> 9\. The details of Lucius' and Narcissa's Handfasting are drawn from Emma Restall Orr's wedding rite (on the [Druid Network](http://druidnetwork.org/en/rites/passage/wedding/weddingrites.html%20)). 
> 
> 10\. I was a little concerned about all this need-surrender stuff that seems to go through _both_ relationships, because I don't like the idea of either Narcissa or Tonks as disempowered, but I felt there was enough of it on Severus' and Lucius' sides as well that it worked. And I felt that at least some of it was needed to hold the two couples, and the family, together against the odds.
> 
> 11\. Anne Boleyn (1501-1536), wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I, is recognised as a witch in HP, as seen in portraits at Hogwart's. (Anne was accused popularly of witchcraft as a form of anti-Protestant rhetoric). Her family had the earldom in Wiltshire, the home of Malfoy Manor. Some feminist historians have interpreted Henry VIII's long, aggressive, and often bizarre courtship of her as a campaign of sexual harassment that she resisted for many years - an interpretation I've followed in her explanation of herself to Lucius.
> 
> 12\. The style used here for the Samhain ritual - a veneration of ancestors in the Celtic, Druid, and Wiccan traditions - is a bastardised version of multiple variations of the rite, with a touch of detail from the equivalent Mexican celebration, Día de los Muertos.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [FIC: Want You To Want Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/436229) by [deslea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea)




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